


The Odd Couple

by historicallyredacted (lockandkey)



Series: Odd Coupled [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: AU, Canon Compliant Only To A Point, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Octavian Lives, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-07-04 22:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15851076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockandkey/pseuds/historicallyredacted
Summary: Leo comes back from the dead. But, unfortunately so does Octavian in the process.And, it seems like they're sort of stuck together.





	1. Neil & Simon

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't uploaded anything PJO related in two years. Yeah, it's...uh...been awhile. There's reasons, but it doesn't really matter now.  
> ...I just can't believe the first thing I'm putting up after so long is....Octavian/Leo. 
> 
> (A number of my other stories WILL be getting updates pretty soon. Yeah, again, after 2 years.)
> 
> More important note: Octavian is older than Leo -- they're the same ages approx they were in HoO, meaning Octavian is just barely 18, and Leo is close but not yet 16. This is a shippy fic, but there will not be anything sexual between them at their ages currently. That's not something I dig, nor want to write. They may be hormonal, young, and dumb...but they're still quite young.  
> So, cussing aside (#letleosayfuck2018) this story will be pretty teen friendly, maybe a bit darker than canon, but nothing too bad.
> 
> This take place at the end of Blood of Olympus, meaning it will be fairly non canon compliant past that. Which is good because i'm...very behind in Trials.

  
  
**L** eo could open his eyes before he could breathe.  
  


His lungs were still stitching themselves back together, air couldn't push its way inside yet. Leo could see the sky around him, he could see his flesh rebuilding itself; scars vanished as new skin replaced the burnt remains of the old.   
Finally, air rushed in and he could breathe again. Panic had nearly set in, feeling like it was divine punishment for all of his misdeeds to die so soon after living again. Part of him thought he likely deserved it.   
  
As soon as Leo was well and able he turned to look at his surroundings better. Leo had no idea where he was, the sky gave no hints, all he managed to figure out was he was on the back of Festus.  
  
Then another gasp of air took him by surprise, and Leo all but spun in place to look behind him. There, a slumped over frame of someone else. Leo was pretty sure his vocal chords had rebuilt themselves at that point, but he couldn’t speak.   
  
Who the _hell_?  
  
The frame lurched up, head tipping backwards; Leo watched in morbid fascination as skin and hair recovered muscle and bone. The person blinked, blinked pale eyes at Leo.  
And then promptly punched Leo in the nose.  
Leo jerked backwards with a loud yelp, bringing his hands up to hold at his face. Admittedly, Leo’d been punched in the face much harder, but even a toddler hitting you in the nose still hurt.  
  
“You _scum_!” The other figure yelped out, looking at Leo like he was the source of all problems. Actually, he might have been. Leo recognized this guy, the pissy weird Roman. He was still toting purple robes and armor, but they were tattered and burnt.  
  
“...You!” Leo said, pointing a finger. “You’re…that guy! Uh…”  
  
“Octavian!” The blond yelled. “My name is _Octavian_ , and you attacked my city! You attack us, and then you kidnap me?!”  
  
“Okay, calm down Draco Malfoy,” Leo glared. It was a bit of an insult to the fictional character. “I didn’t kidnap anybody, okay? I’m as shocked to see you here as you are me. Actually, correction, I’m _more_ surprised, I literally just died and came back to life. I was kind of hoping the first people I’d see were my friends or a pretty girl. Not… _this._ ”  
Leo waved a hand at Octavian’s stupid face which was twisted in anger and confusion.  
  
“Then what happened? Huh? Answer me, _Graecus_!” Octavian was ordering Leo around like he was…well, a rich white boy with a sense of entitlement, so, yeah no, that made sense.  
  
“ _I_ ,” Leo started slowly with extra exaggeration. “I, was in the process of committing non-suicide to blow the earth lady back to the dirt she came from. Everything I did was part of the plan. You here, are not.”  
  
Octavian’s expression dripped condescension. “The dirt isn’t where she came from, she _is_ the earth, you plebian.”  
  
“ _Oh my God_ ,” Leo said flatly. “That is _so_ not the issue right now, like... what the fuck, why are you on my dragon?”  
  
It seemed Octavian hadn’t taken the time to notice that yet, and looked down, and immediately went white…whiter in the face. Leo wasn’t certain if he just realized he had been recently blown to smithereens or the fact they were thousands of feet in the air.  
“I-…I was about to fire an onager at the Earth Mother and you…and,” his face twisted in confusion. “I think I got caught up in it somehow…”  
  
Leo had very little sympathy at this point. Well, less so. Which seemed hard to do.   
“So, let me get this straight, you tried to legitimately murder me, and... accidentally fucked yourself over?”  
  
“You declared war on Rome,” Octavian said like it explained everything, excused everything. “I was protecting my people, from you, from the Earth Mother. I feel no guilt in my actions.”  
  
“Bullshit, you were protecting your reputation - oh _gods_ , it feels good to cuss, I’ve been holding this in since Hazel’s whole 1940s thing.” Leo paused in the middle speaking as realization kicked in. Admittedly, not the best time for his ADHD to rear back up. Octavian didn’t look amused. But, then again, Leo was pretty sure Octavian was unable to be amused. Except by suffering.  
  
“Swearing is the first resort of the last to succeed.”  
  
“Okay, I’m done with you, I have no idea why you’re here, I’m guessing the Physicians Cure did double duty somehow, so I’m just going to drop you on the first piece of land I see-“ Leo was cut off but two arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him backwards in his seat until he was arching off in pain.  
  
“You will do nothing of the sort, or I will personally hold you here until the air leaves your…your...”   
The grip began to slip, and Leo decided it was time for payback and lit himself on fire. Or, tried to.  Nothing happened. The arms went limp regardless.   
  
“What the fuck?” Leo coughed and rubbed at his throat, but Octavian wasn’t looking at him, but down at his hands.  
  
“I couldn’t do it…” Octavian stared down at his palms like they betrayed him. “What is wrong with me? I couldn’t hold you…”  
  
Leo stared at him for a minute, absentmindedly rubbing at his neck, before snapping out of his surprise and reaching over to smack the man in the side of the head. Octavian seemed to snap out of it, and grabbed Leo’s hand before he could do it again.  
  
And then _The Thing_ happened.   
  
An electric current, or that’s what it sort of felt like, ran down Leo’s spine; Octavian seemed to be much the same way, because they pulled back from one another at the same time.  
That was weird, Leo thought with a frown, but chose to ignore it. He was just dead 5 minutes ago, he’d dealt with weirder.  
  
The astrolabe on Festus began to whir, due to Leo’s modifications of course (they’re not known for moving on their own) and Leo turned away from the towhead to check.   
They were over Ogygia, Leo realized with some glee. Then it hit him that he’d have to introduce Calypso to Octavian and it just got really strange in his brain.   
  
“We’re going down,” Leo said, adjusting himself in his seat. “If you strangle me again, I’ll burn your ass.” Even if he couldn’t, Leo was all about finding ways in the impossible.  
  
“Going down?” Octavian looked around nervously, but like he was pretending not to be. “This piece of junk can’t hold us-“ Leo held up a hand on fire.  
  
“Do not. _Ever_. Call him a piece of junk.”  
  
Octavian looked at him like he was sizing him up, “or what, scum?”  
  
“Or I remove yours,” Leo said smoothly, and that got the reaction he wanted. “Good boy.”  
  
Octavian turned red, and opened his mouth to likely yell or probably throw racial slurs, Leo had no idea, but Octavian seemed the type to vote red.   
“Festus, not you, you’re an asshole. Festus is a good boy. Come on, buddy, let’s go get her.”  
  
“Get who?” Octavian hissed, looking around like a woman was just randomly floating around. “What monsters have you been cohabitating with?”  
  
“Calypso,” Leo said, “my girlfriend. I think. Probably?”  
  
“Not the…actual Calypso, surely?” Octavian looked horrified by the very concept.  
  
“Who else?” Leo rolled his eyes. “She’s great, you’ll hate her. Which makes her great.”

“Who el- I’m not the _actual_ Octavian! It isn’t a strange question!”  
  
“…There was an actual Octavian? Two people chose a name that stupid for a baby?”  
  
“Gaius Octavianus, later known as Augustus, ushered in the Pax Romana, expanded his empire-“  
  
Leo realized his mistake, as Octavian continued talking until they reached the soils of Ogygia, no matter how many times Leo told him to shut up in every language he knew.  
  
Calypso was waiting on the shore as they touched down, and opened her mouth to say something to Leo, before noticing Octavian sliding off of Festus.  
“Who is this?”   
  
“Sea Witch, I am Octavian of New Rome, Augur, Centurion.” Octavian introduced himself, but did not endear himself, as her eyes narrowed slowly.  
“If you attempt to sing your bewitching tunes, seductress, I will be forced to send you back to the pits of Tartarus.”  
  
Calypso looked accusingly at Leo who shrugged helplessly at her. “Not part of my plan. I hate him too, trust me. He’s tried to kill me like, what?” Leo looked back at Octavian who looked like he sincerely considered the question.  
  
“At least 5 times,” Octavian nodded to himself. “Yes, roughly 5, though the majority were one long sustained effort that you avoided.  
  
Leo gestured at Octavian, looking at Calypso, while making a few rude hand gestures towards the Roman. “So, I say we ditch him and go?”  
  
But Calypso was looking at Leo oddly, and then back to Octavian. There was a frown on her face, and a deeply sad one in her eyes.  
“Uh...Caly? Babe? Sunshine?” Leo stepped closer, and reached his hand out to touch her shoulder, but she pulled away.

“…Calypso?”  
  
“I see, well, it figures…The same thing always happens…” Calypso crossed her arms and took a few steps backwards. She was closing herself off, Leo didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that. Leo looked at her packed gear behind her, and took a step towards it.  
  
“Don’t,” Calypso warned, her eyes closed like she was in pain. “I’m not coming with you.”  
  
Leo stared helplessly, blinking hard. “W-what are you talking about? I…Come on, look we…don’t need to date, we never have to do anything like that, but-“  
  
“Leo, I appreciate that, I really do. I care about you, truly. But…,” The girl turned away, tear streaks began to run down her face. “I’m sorry. Please leave.”

Leo felt nearly hysterical, looking between her, and Octavian who seemed more disgusted than confused.   
  
“I don’t understand, I just want to help, did I do something wrong-“  
  
“Your fate is not mine, Leo. It’s tied to another.” Calypso’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I understand I can leave with you, right this moment. I do, but…after so long… I want someone to come for me whose fate _is_ my own. I know you don’t understand, but maybe someday you will. _Please_.”  
  
Leo’s shoulders sagged, but as he looked at her he realized he couldn’t change her mind. It was like Echo all over again, but worse. He didn’t want her to be trapped here any longer. He didn’t care if she never loved him, Leo just didn’t want her to have to be alone.   
  
“I’ll make sure the Gods free you,” Leo said finally, voice thick with emotion. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll make sure you can leave when _you_ want to. I won’t forget you. I will _never_ forget you, Calypso, I swear on that.”  
  
Calypso smiled, tears in her eyes, taking a few steps closer to him to wrap her arms around his frame, kissing him on the cheek. “Go live your life, Leo. We’ll meet again, I’m sure. Goodbye, for now.”

“Goodbye, sunshine.” Leo whispered against her hair, and kissed the side of her head. “For now.”  
It was a promise.

When they left, he flew away without looking back.   
  
Octavian was quiet, for all of about 10 minutes.   
  
“You dated a monster?” Octavian’s voice was full of judgement, and Leo wasn’t having it right now. Leo could keep a lot of things bottled up, but just hearing Octavian speak was like nails on a chalkboard. So, he turned around and grabbed the blond by the shirt, pulling him forward to headbutt the Centurion in his stupid face.   
But, stopped short, as Leo’s body stopped moving against his will and he was left with his face just inches from Octavian’s who looked similarly shocked and disturbed. Leo realized Octavian had raised his own hands to push Leo away, but were just resting on Leo’s shoulders.   
  
Leo snapped back, the extent of the problem beginning to dawn in horror. “What the…why couldn’t I hit you?”

“Same reason I couldn’t hurt you, I’m guessing.” Octavian muttered. “Something strange is happening. “  
  
“So we….can’t hurt each other?” Leo changed his mind drastically, because at the moment, he was actually thrilled for a new problem for his brain to focus on. It saved him from having to think about Calypso.

“I hit you in the nose, and you hit me back” Octavian said curiously. “So it appears some is fine.”  
  
Leo frowned, tapping against the bronze back of Festus in thought. “Was it though? Or was it surprise and shock more than an actual wish to injure? Try hitting me again.” Octavian looked baffled but pleased with the request.  
  
“You’re asking me to punch you?” It was like Christmas for creepy faced Romans, from the tone in his voice.  
  
 Leo rolled his eyes. “Just do it already, dillweed.”

Octavian pulled his fist back for the wind up, and threw it forward in what would have likely broken his nose if it had actually made contact. But, it didn’t. Octavian’s fist stopped a few inches from Leo’s face. Octavian glared at his own hand, and tried again, and again, until it just looked sad and silly.  
  
“Okay, stop hitting the sky, big Z might take offense.” Leo sighed. Octavian tried again, and then muttered something about it being J not Z, but Leo ignored him.   
  
“It'sthe Physicians Cure. That’s the only reasonable explanation. “ Leo said his thought process out loud, pulling a small journal out of his belt and began to write down what they were noticing.   
  
“The what? You mentioned it before, what is it?” Octavian asked with clear annoyance in his voice as he leaned over Leo’s shoulder to see what he was writing. “Don’t call me that.”  
  
“Then don’t act like one,” Leo shot back and kept writing. “The Physicians Cure was what brought me, and I’m assuming you, back to life. It should have only been enough for one singular life, and yet here _we_ are. My guess is something relating to that is the reason we can’t purposely injure one another.”  
  
Octavian scoffed at the thought. “How did someone like you get your hands on something like that? The Gods would never truly smile on a _Graecus_ -“  
  
“I made a bargain with a few, including Apollo, so, you know. Shut up.” Leo mumbled, still making notes, and not even glancing at the blond behind him.   
  
Octavian leaned back, and crossed his arms. He was used to people in New Rome expressing dislike and disrespect towards him, but at the very least they feared him in some manner.   
Leo Valdez did not fear, respect, or seemingly care about his existence in general; never even bothering to learn his name before he fired on his city. Octavian had been on the Argo when Leo attacked, appraising the vehicle and assessing the likelihood for warfare. Leo Valdez paid him little regard, acting like Octavian was more a piece of gum on his shoe than well known Centurion who had served Camp Jupiter for 7 years.   
All Octavian ever wanted was to raise New Rome to true glory, but few saw his vision. He had almost been thankful to the Greeks, a war was a good way to inspire people, but then that seemingly backfired.  
  
“We have to cross the ocean,” Leo said after a moment of calculating. It wasn’t just their physical situation he was thinking about, it was their location. They had left the space around Ogygia, but their place in the world was still a mystery until now. They were about where Leo had shown up before in Greece, maybe Festus went there on purpose.   
  
“What?” Octavian frowned, his own train of thought being cut off. “What ocean?”  
  
“The ocean is a big body of sea water, the blue one with all the fish, ever heard of it?” Leo sighed, grabbing up the astrolabe and turning his back to Octavian. Octavian wished more than ever he could spear him through.   
“Mediterranean, then we cross the Atlantic.” Leo announced, before beginning to chew on the tip of a pen Octavian had no idea where came from. “But, I think we might want to avoid the Atlantic as much as possible. It was not super chill last time we went over it, and there were more people and better provisions. I need to reroute our course.”  
  
“So we go north, or go south?” Octavian asked after a moment to think about the situation, and Leo looked at him with a bit of surprise.  
“Well, there are only two reasonable paths if we’re currently in the Mediterranean. We go north, and cross the UK and Greenland, and cross into the Northwestern Passage from there before heading south towards New York.” Octavian held up two fingers. “Or, alternatively, we cross into Africa and head south towards the West Coast, before crossing the closest point towards Brazil, before heading north through the Caribbean.”   
  
Leo continued to stare at blankly.  
“What?” Octavian seemed offended, but then again he always did. “I’ve already graduated from University with honors. You think me stupid?”   
  
“You said it, not me.” Leo said, reappraising Octavian. Sure, he hated him, but Leo could use brains right now. “You’re right though. I would figure Africa is the safest bet. You’d probably not survive the northern temperatures this time of year. I might be able to make my own warmth, but you can't. Of course, heading east and crossing the Pacific is a possibility, but not a good one. We have no idea what kind of monsters are over there, not to mention a much much longer flight across open ocean.”   
  
Octavian wasn’t entirely sure how to take that. He wasn’t really expecting the other boy to think of his general well being. He certainly didn’t return the favor. If Octavian could shove him from the dragon and commandeer it, he would in a heartbeat.  
  
“Plus,” Leo mumbled. “I am…sort of not on good terms with a very mean snow lady and her brothers in Canada. Probably not the best place to cross.”  
Octavian nearly felt a bit disappointed, though not surprised. It was good information however, any enemy of Valdez was a friend of Octavian.   
  
“Fine, a journey West then. How long will this take, anyway? Not too dreadfully long, I’d hope.”  
  
Leo burst out laughing, and just shook his head without answering.  “Oh my gods…”  
  
“I’ll take that as 'significantly longer',” Octavian sighed. “I was eager to get away from you, can you blame me?”  
  
Leo snorted, but didn’t seem to disagree.  
“You’re not the first, no, so the sensation has worn off by now.” Leo readjusted himself, cracking his knuckles.   
  
”Better buckle up. You _should_ have been able to tell our speed by now, honor student, we’ll probably take at least a week, and that is a _conservative_ guess. Festus is fast, but not airliner fast, which means if we don’t just go across the Sahara, it’ll take most of the day to reach Morocco. Plus, I’d recommend taking a pitstop for a day before actually crossing the Atlantic, to see if we can find anything usable. We’ll need to strap ourselves in, because crossing is going to take close to 24 hours, and sleep is going to not be an option. And, that’s just the general shit, I’m not including everything else that will _without a doubt_ happen.”

“Everything else?” Octavian was honestly confused by the statement, and Leo looked over his shoulder and grinned evilly.   
  
“Not been out of the country, huh? You’re not in San Fran anymore, bub, there be monsters here like you’ve never seen.”  
  
-  


And there were.   
They’d spent a number of relatively quiet hours flying to reach land, happily uninterrupted hours, but as soon as they reached the port of Alexandria in Egypt, everything went to hell in a handbasket.   
  
They found themselves clinging onto the dragon while making some rather intricate moves to dodge some weird sphinx like monstrosity that attacked them. It had multiple wings, multiple faces, and a good portion of it was lion.  
  
“Curses!” Octavian hissed. “I don’t have a weapon, give me a weapon!”  
  
“I thought you didn’t curse?” Leo laughed, and tossed a fireball at the thing, but it didn’t do much. “I don’t think I trust you that much. You have tried to kill me, what was it, you said 5 times?”  
  
“Yes, but I can’t now!” Octavian yelled in frustration. “Just give me something! Why does it look more Babylonian than Egyptian, it makes no sense!”  
  
Leo handed him a letter opener. If Octavian was the one with fire powers, Leo’s head would have likely gone up in flames with the strength of his glare. He threw it anyway, and it pierced the head of the monster, which fell to pieces of sand.   
  
Leo’s jaw dropped, and Octavian preened.  
  
“Shit, that was pretty cool. You throw knives?” Octavian nodded proudly, but felt a weird sensation as he watched Leo’s face turn into a smile. Embarrassment? No, surely not. “Okay, still hate you, but cool. I’m pretty sure Will can’t do that.”  
  
“Will?” Octavian frowned. “Who is that? Another jilted lover?” Leo’s face immediately turned to displeasure.  
  
“I’m 15, dude, I don’t have any lovers..jilted or otherwise. Will is one of the sons of Apollo, so, like…your half brother. But, Greek. So, like you, but infinitely better and less of a douche.”  
  
“Except he can’t throw knives?” Octavian called back with a smirk, and Leo quirked a brow in amusement or something else.   
  
“He’s a healer. I’ll take someone who helps people over one who destroys any day of the week, man.”  
  
“Your powers are the very epitome of destructive,” Octavian reminded him, and Leo looked away without responding.   
  
“I’m going to land, I need to repair Festus.” Leo sighed, patting on Festus and they began to descend into the outskirts of the busy African city.   
  
“No pithy comment?” Octavian said after they landed, and Leo shot him a look. “No snark? No general idiocy your people are so fond of?”  
  
“ _Wow_ ,” Leo shook his head with a laugh, “if you say, ‘your people’ again…”  
  
“You’ll what?” Octavian challenged, stepping forward to cross the distance between them. They were both slim, but Octavian was older and taller by quite a bit. He stared down at Leo. “What will you do? You’re _nothing_.”  
  
A small breathy noise startled Octavian, who jerked back as Leo looked down at the ground and wiped at his face.   
“Oh, by the gods, are you crying?” Octavian stuttered out, horrified. He was not good with crying. “I…I didn’t, I mean...I-“  
  
Leo looked up with a grin and completely tearless eyes, “gotcha.”  
  
Octavian opened and closed his mouth, and Leo patted him on the shoulder.   
  
“Word of advice? Anything you say to me? I’ve heard it already five times over, probably from my own family. That crying schtick? A trick I learned… at roughly age 9 to trick the nice foster families into giving me shit I wanted. And, my best friend is a daughter of Aphrodite, Venus, whatever. I’ve learned from the best.”  
Leo shoved a finger into Octavian’s chest, ignoring their size difference completely. “I may be nothing, but guess what? We’re both nothing.”   
Leo looked him straight in the eyes.  “And, my guess? That bothers you a _hell_ of a lot more than it bothers me.”  
  
Octavian said nothing as Leo stepped around him and moved to start fixing Festus. Didn’t say a word until night had fallen.  
  
But, then it was dark out, and Octavian realized he was hungry.  Leo was still working on the bronze dragon, and hadn’t stopped. The dragon, with the stupidest name he’d ever heard, watched Octavian with some suspicion.   
Probably well warranted by now, having threatened his owner repeatedly.

“Do you have money?” Octavian fumbled about before just hitting himself and asking. Leo paused and looked up.   
“Why?”

“I want to go into town and get food and provisions, if you were intelligent, you would have realized that by now, but I suppose your people aren’t-“ Leo stood up and glared him down.   
  
“See, the thing that bugs me when you say that is I have no idea if you mean Greek demigods or if you mean Mexicans. But, knowing you, it’s probably both.”

Octavian tipped his chin up to sneer down at the shorter boy. “You think me so petty? You realize I served under Reyna, do you not?”  
  
“Yes,” Leo said without a moment of thinking about it. “You tried to overthrow her too, remember?”  
  
“I’m not racist,” Octavian ignored everything Leo said. It was true, after all. “I just think-“  
  
“Nope,” Leo shook his head. “Nope, nuh _uh_ , not happening, shut up and don’t finish that thought process. I’ll make you food, just stop talking.”  
  
Octavian paused, and glared silently, his feathers well ruffled by now. Leo sighed in relief, before sitting down on the sands, and pulling random items out of his belt. They surely couldn’t have all fit, so it was most likely enchanted.   
  
“I’m not racist,” Octavian said after a moment, and Leo looked at him like he was above to shove a fork through his eye, or would if he was able.  “The man my mother married was a legacy of Mars, from Senegal. My half siblings are mixed race. You may think you know me, but you don’t.”  
  
“That doesn’t mean you’re not racist,” Leo said, chin in his hand, appraising Octavian. “But, I’m tired of arguing. What do you want to eat? Any food allergies? I’m curious if I can poison you.”  
  
“No,” Octavian rolled his eyes, and Leo snickered.  
  
“That,” Leo pointed. “Is the first time I’ve ever seen you act like an actual teenager.”  
  
“…I’m 18, I am an adult.” He’d waited long for the day, after all. To finally be respected as an adult, instead of a child.  
  
“No, you’re one cat away from being a movie villain.” Leo crossed his legs. “Maybe, if you were an actual teenager, you’d be less obsessed with glory and honor and all that and learn to have fun for once. 18 going on 68, more like.”  
  
“I _have_ fun, and I want…,” Octavian nodded to himself in thought. “Yes, I’d like tacos. They’re a fun food, yes?”  
  
“Tacos? Man, you’re practically latino now. l was so very wrong about you, Herr Octavian!”  
  
Octavian narrowed his eyes, “you realize that just means Mister or sir, right?”  
  
“I actually had no idea, I just wanted to imply you’re a Nazi.” Leo said happily. “Calm your tuts, I’ll make something good.”  
  
“It’s no surprise,” Octavian sniffed derisively, dusting away some sand from his tattered robes. “I’d imagine your education doesn’t go above elementary school.”  
  
“You’d be correct,” Leo smiled, he was visibly less amused and more visibly perturbed. “That’s what happens when you’re orphaned.”  
  
He started to mix ingredients in a bowl that Octavian was also not sure where came from. It didn’t seem like it could have been pulled from anywhere. The Greek held the bowl, with his hand lit in flames to cook it. When it was done, Leo handed over a steaming plate. It smelled good.

“I made paella. You good?” Octavian nodded, assuming he was asking if Octavian found the meal choice acceptable, and took a bite. It was very good.  
  
“It’s sad,” Octavian said after he was finished eating, and Leo looked at him tiredly as he was eating. “You Greeks, you have no support for one another.”  
  
“Remind me to spit in your food next time,” Leo looked exhausted, and put down the food he was eating. “It seems to me that the Romans are the ones who don’t give a shit the second someone starts thinking for themselves.”  
  
“You have no long term support systems for demigods,” Octavian ignored Leo, waving a finger as though he was scolding a child. “You have no businesses, no real communities that I could see. You’re a summer camp, no more, no less. What do you do for the children that have been orphaned?”  
  
“I don’t know, wasn’t at camp very long, ask Percy.” Leo looked away, thinking. “Why do you care?”  
  
“You’re, as much as I hate to admit this, a better chef than I was expecting, especially with no real cooking instruments. In New Rome, we would support these talents. Maybe, you could open a restaurant, or shop of some nature. But, what will you there, once you’re older? I noticed there were no demigods over the age of 25 that I could see. Do you all die? Pretend to be human, and live a constantly thre-“  
  
“I don’t know!” Leo cut him off, looking quite angry. “I have no idea, okay? I wasn’t expecting to live this long.”  
  
“That’s the problem,” Octavian didn’t stop his lecture, standing up to pace. “None of you have any foresight. You’re hotheaded, idiotic, unrespectable, chaotic-”  
  
“I’m going to bed,” Leo stood up abruptly and walked around to the other side of Festus. Octavian rolled his eyes before he could catch himself.   
  
“Think about my suggestions,” Octavian called over before laying back on the warm sands himself, like he was doing Leo a favor.

“Get bit by an asp and go Cleopatra yourself, asshat.” Leo grumbled from his side, annoyance clear in his voice.

Octavian waited a moment, before speaking. “…It was actually an Egyptian Cobra, not the European Aspis. In fact, it was likely neither, but rather a respectable concoction of poisons. You should read more. It is a common, but still unacceptable mistake that uneducated individuals make. Building a library would be the first step-”  
  
Leo tossed a wrench at him, but it missed.  
  
Octavian was awoken in the early morning light by a foot prodding him in the stomach, it didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t a great way to wake up either.   
“You rud-“  
  
“Save it, we need to get going. A storm is coming, and I really don’t want to get stuck with you any longer than possible.”  
  
Octavian stood up gingerly, and eyed Leo, who noticed and exhaled sharply. “ _What_?”  
  
“I need to brush my teeth.”  
  
Leo threw him a small bottle of mouth wash and a tooth brush, and while Octavian was mildly disgusted, it was better than nothing. He’d never had a cavity before, his teeth were in his opinion, flawless. He didn’t want to ruin that now.

They set off once again, but could see clouds in the distance. They were dark reds and beige and gray, with bright flashes of gold.  
  
“Beautiful,” Octavian breathed out, as the wind began whipping. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it shouldn’t be there,” Leo eyed the same clouds with some trepidation. He hadn’t seen any weather forecasts in town that mentioned anything like it.  
  
“Another monster?” Octavian asked, and Leo tilted his head and bit a worrying lip.  
  
“I honestly don’t know…but, something tells me it isn’t that simple.”  
  
They flew until night fall, but managed to reach Morocco. The storm they saw had vanished once they left Egypt, which made Leo all the more paranoid. He hadn’t stopped fidgeting and tapping the entire way, and it was driving Octavian up the metaphorical wall.  
  
“Do you think there are others?” Leo asked in a rare moment of openness, looking like an actual uncertain 15 year old, in a way that bothered Octavian for some reason.  
  
“Other what?”   
  
“Gods,” Leo answered. “We have…Greeks, Romans…but, are there more than us?”  
  
“Egyptians, you mean?” Octavian was easily able to piece together the source of the boys discontent and pondered the question for a moment. “It’s plausible. There are Roman gods that are not versions of Greek. Greek, that have no dual Roman forms. If there are entirely separate deities in those situations, then it is likely that there are others.”  
  
Leo looked at him seriously for once, eyes searching his face, his posture. “Doesn’t that scare you?”  
  
“No,” Octavian answered honestly. “It doesn’t. Gods are not my concern; Rome is, my people are.”  
  
Leo shook his head and looked away, “aren’t we all?”  
  
“What?” Octavian asked, confused. This _graecus_ was more confounding than Jackson had been, who was simply like a fly that he wished to swat.   
  
“Demigods,” Leo said, looking back at him. “Don’t we have more in common than we have different? Aren’t we all your people then? Shouldn’t we support one another? Support systems, like you said. Communities.”  
  
“I-“ Octavian wasn’t sure how to reply. In fact, he was mostly taken back by the fact Leo had evidentially given his suggestions some consideration the night before.  
  
Leo seemed to realize what Octavian was thinking, “you _were_ right, maybe not how you meant, but ...it's true. As much as I really hate you.”

Octavian was very conflicted now.   
  
“We have no way to help each other, not really, not at Camp Half Blood. A satyr either gets us to camp when we’re young, or they don’t.” Leo swallowed hard, looking off into the distance.  “Before that, we’re just…with our human families, or alone. There are probably more of us alone, than not.”  
  
“Or in foster care,” Octavian added, remembering what Leo had said the previous day. The curly haired boy looked back at him and nodded.   
  
“In foster care, or worse,” Leo said. “It isn’t fair to us, or our parents, to be so vulnerable. How many mothers, fathers, siblings, have been killed…because we’re demigods? How many kids around the world?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Octavian answered after a moment. “I don’t know. If the numbers are similar world wide, then…thousands? Hundreds of thousands, even.”

“I don’t like that,” Leo said firmly. “You can go back to New Rome, deal with your people, but like I said. You’re right. I think we should have support. Or, in another generation, once me and all my friends are long dead, we’ll get another Luke.”  
  
“Luke?” Octavian echoed, he thought he had heard the name before but wasn’t sure where.  
  
“Luke Castellan, I wasn’t around then either, but he was the one who started the Titan war.” Leo explained, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “One guy thinks the Gods don’t care, that’s fine, but when 50, 100, hundreds do…”  
  
Octavian hadn’t really experienced this before, being told he was right while being told he was wrong, feeling vindicated and chastised.   
  
“R-Rome can,” Octavian started shakily, jutting out his chin once again in a shadow of his more prideful boasts. “We can…support others. But, under our ways.”  
  
Leo sighed, shaking his head and mumbling something under his breath. “That isn’t support, it’s oppression. Have you ever considered that you only think your ways are the right ways because you were born to it?”

“That sounded very Disney-esque of you,” Octavian deflected, and turned away. “I’m going to get firewood.” Leo looked at him wearily as he left.   
  
“You…don’t need to,” Leo said to himself, rolling his eyes and moving back to Festus. “I’m literally made of fire. Fucking asshole.”  
  
The next morning, they spent their time flying closer towards the Horn, until touching down outside a Senegalese market.  Octavian actually seemed rather happy for once with this particular pitstop. Like, _actually_ happy and not sneery smirky “happy”. It was odd for Leo to witness.   
  
“You actually like your stepfather, don’t you?” Leo asked curiously, after Octavian got done speaking to a shop owner.   
  
“He’s preferable to my mother,” Octavian answered. “They’re both doctors, but his work actually matters.”  
  
“Is there a doctor who does meaningless work?” Leo asked, laughing in astonishment. “Like, what does that even mean?”

“It means she’s a psychologist,” Octavian said with a huff and crossed arms. “My stepfather is a neurosurgeon. He saves lives, she talks.”  
  
Leo stared at him like he saw something particularly disgusting on the floor of a mens bathroom, brows together and lips drawn back into a frown.   
“Doesn’t she, I don’t know, help people with mental health problems?”  
  
Octavian scoffed at the very concept, and Leo threw his arms up and walked away.   
  
Later, Octavian showed back up with bags full of herbs and spices and what looked like a headband. “Ladies appreciated my skill in speaking their language, and gave me gifts.” Leo rolled his eyes, and muttered something about them probably trying to get him to leave.   
“What are you doing?”  
  
“Trying to contact my friends,” Leo said, looking disappointedly into the fountain they had met back up at. The water gave nothing back to him.  
“I’ve been trying, but I haven’t been able to get through by any means. I even used a phone booth. Just static. Nothing in Alexandria, nothing in Morocco, nothing here either. “  
  
Octavian walked over and sat next to him and looked into waters. “Let me try, I’m an _augur_. I have a more natural line to the Gods, than someone like yourself who spits in the face of our customs and rules.”

It didn’t work for him either.   
  
“I need a live chicken,” Octavian glared into the fountain. “And a ceremonial dagger.”  
  
“Nnnope,” Leo stood up, drying his hands off on his shirt. “No blood sacrifices, I put my foot down at blood sacrifices.”  
  
“You’re being unreasonable,” Octavian followed suit in standing, attempting to use his height as an advantage once again. “I guess that shouldn’t be surprising given your people-“Leo grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him hard into the fountain.   
  
It didn’t hurt, there was no injury or pain involves in the matter, but he was now soaking wet. So Octavian rushed up and grabbed the other boy and hauled him in with him.  
 It was childish, but they ended up shoving and splashing and just generally making idiots of themselves until Octavian noticed Leo was laughing. That was not what Octavian had intended, he was planning on more of a near-drowning.  
  
Then, he noticed they were very close, and Leo’s palm was on his chest and his own hand was on Leo’s waist and everything froze. Octavian swallowed hard, and Leo met his eyes curiously. Big, dark brown eyes.  
  
“Hey, you boys,” someone called to them and Octavian thanked every deity he could name that he was saved before losing composure. “You need to stop,” a young woman said in English with an accent.  
  
“I’m apologize,” Octavian said back, in Wolof. She looked surprised, but smiled.   
  
“I don’t mind,” she said in her own language, “but some others here might not approve of two boys doing that together. I think young love is precious.”  
  
Octavian felt bile in his throat.   
He glanced over at Leo, who was brushing a curl of wet hair out of his eyes. The warm mid day light hit the water just right and reflected sunlight back onto Leo’s stomach and cheeks. His normally loose dirty off white tank top was wet and clinging and very nearly see through. The reflections of water looked like soft gold on his skin.  
“Oh no,” Octavian whispered, and got a weary look from his forced travel companion.   
He was _15_ , Octavian told himself. 15 and _Greek_. It was extremely unsightly, inappropriate, not to mention possibly _illegal_ to harbor unfortunate emotional attachments to-  
  
“What? That stick almost fall out of your ass after having fun for 5 minutes?” Leo grinned toothily, and Octavian realized that he did in fact hate Leo Valdez. "No? What a shame."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Felix & Ungar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey west starts to go south.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They continue to be snarky. That's all I got.  
> Not quite as long as the first chapter, but we goin places.

  
  
**T** hey ate that night, Leo made a kind of couscous to Octavian’s instructions, and it turned out to taste very little like the meals Octavian’s step-father made, but it was still good. It seemed to Octavian that Leo’s innate skill in crafting also applied to culinary arts, to which he was thankful. It would have been dreadful if he ended up on this misadventure and had to eat snakes or lizards.   
  
He’d never given much thought to the children of Vulcan, they were often useful tools, similar to the children of Mars, but more hands on. They created their armaments, that the extent to which Octavian cared. They weren’t particularly clever, and their creativity stopped at building the Romans weapons of war.  
Leo wasn’t like his Roman siblings, and Octavian was willing to bet he wasn’t much like his Greek family either. He wasn’t shaped like them, his mind seemed to operate differently.  Octavian had never seen a child of Vulcan cook, let alone seemingly enjoy doing so. They didn’t treat their creations like Leo treated bronze dragon.   
  
It confused him.  
  
They slept, this time on they were on same side of the dragon, but with a healthy space between them. In the morning, Leo tossed Octavian a few pieces of fabric, which the older Roman looked down at in confusion.  
  
“Clothes,” Leo shrugged casually and walked off. Octavian looked down at his once beloved robes, before changing. No wonder the women in the market had taken pity on him. They were still dirty and tattered. Burnt, Octavian reminded himself, looking at his unfortunate travel companion.  
The _Graecus_ had given him sweat pants, coat and a white t-shirt. Octavian was not pleased with this particular arrangement. He looked as though he was in gym…at a, gods forbid, _public_ school.  
  
“I need different clothes, these are horrific,” Octavian gestured at himself, and Leo smiled up at him with feigned innocence.  
  
“I don’t see what’s wrong with them.” Octavian narrowed his eyes.  
  
“You wouldn’t.”  
Leo batted his lashes and cocked his head like a dog, up until Octavian couldn’t stand it and stormed off to go back to the Senegalese marketplace. He understood Wolof better than Leo Valdez. This was proven when Leo followed him, seemingly out of curiosity.  
One of the kinder women proved herself to be just as cruel when she said that Octavian looked like an American popstar, like Justin Bieber. Leo laughed so hard his face turned red, he was wheezing, and tears began streaming down his face.  
(He looked _nothing_ like Justin Bieber.)  
  
The next morning was a more solemn affair, they would finally be leaving. They would travel to Cape Verde, before finally making their way across the Atlantic. Leaving Senegal, almost felt like leaving home again, to Octavian. It was in some ways very familiar, though maybe he was simply wanting to put of the flight across the open Atlantic ocean.  
  
“Blankets? Two each, plus spares?” Octavian asked, and Leo checked off his list.  
  
“Food? Easily eaten, made, with enough caloric value?” Another check.  
  
“Fresh water? Electrolytes? ” Leo nodded, and checked it off. “Then we…can leave then?”  
  
“We’re about as ready as we can be. We could take a plane, or a boat, or something, but I can’t promise we wouldn’t endanger the lives of all civilians aboard. Not to mention, I have no money.” Leo absentmindedly began tugging at a curl of hair, and Octavian paused. He had noticed that the other boy did many things without seemingly thinking about it, tapping, fiddling with items. ADHD and other disorders ran common in demigod groups, but in New Rome they were usually trained out of the worst habits at a very young. Structure and order were the cornerstone of Roman life. Dyslexia was harder to combat, however; but their schools were set up to handle it, one advantage of having schools and universities created and run by demigods. No one at Camp Half Blood appeared to have anything of the sort, and they suffered for it.   
Though, a terrible voice inside Octavian’s mind found the fidgeting almost endearing, but he knew it was nothing more than some side effect of the damn Cure, or possibly just madness.  
  
“Okay, so, we’re ready?” Leo gave him a toothy smile, and Octavian’s jaw tightened.   
  
“I am ready for anything.”  
  
They were not.   
  
From Dakar to Cape Verde, their travels were fine. The coastline was beautiful. From there into the middle of the Atlantic things continued to be fine. The scenery was much of the same, though Festus made a point of dropping down close enough to the water to see what lay below. The dragon spotted a pod of dolphins and followed it briefly.   
They had been in the air for about 10 hours, and while it wasn’t comfortable, both boys had been in worse spots before. Leo, running away from foster homes; Octavian, who had to pass trials set forth by Lupa. They had padded their seats, had blankets and heavier clothes. It wasn’t perfect, but it could have been worse.

  
Worse happened when something in the wind changed; it grew suddenly cold, and the air began to bite at them. Leo began to look around, obviously nervous but trying to hide it. Octavian drew out a dagger, one Leo had no idea he had obtained in the markets of Dakar.   
  
Something in the clouds laughed, a giggle really, and then another, and another. Hail formed, and began plummeting down with speed and force to the point it hurt. They were whispering, teasing.   
Leo was cautious, but Octavian had had enough; he threw a blade at where he believed a source of the laughter came from.   
  
The clouds turned bloody and darkened red, the voices around them gasped and everything stopped.   
  
Something flew at them, jagged pieces of ice the size of baseballs.   
One struck Octavian in the head, and the Roman was out cold in moments, slumping to the side completely limp.   
Leo cursed, and turned in his seat to make sure the idiot wasn’t going to fall into the oceans far, far below. They were tied down, but who knew what damage had been done to Festus. Octavian ended up limp against Leo’s back, head resting on his shoulder, possibly bleeding, but Leo couldn’t tell.  
Another piece flew at them, and Leo was similarly done with this situation.  
  
“ _ENOUGH_!” Leo shouted, throwing out a wide ring of flames that lit the entire sky. He avoided Octavian on purpose, but wasn’t sure if the flames would touch him regardless. The voices began to sound scared, the invisible forces moved, scurrying around in the air, changing the winds course.  
  
“ _The mistress told us to_ ,” a voice spoke up against Leo’s ear without warning, and he felt cold dread down his spine. But, as soon as it had arrived, it left.  
Leo panted as it began to rain on them, Octavian still knocked out against him and possibly concussed, and he realized there were still many more hours to come.   
  
“Are you okay, buddy?” Leo asked Festus, patting the side of the bronze hull. Leo noticed his own hand was bleeding from a cut he had received from the ice and hail. It wasn’t severe thankfully, but the adrenaline masked the pain.   
Festus creaked in agreement, but Leo knew that his friend wasn’t looking forward to anymore visitors.  
  
It took Octavian a few hours of his own to wake up, Leo had poured a bit of Nectar down his throat right away, which had been awkward, but the wound on his forehead seemed to be healing. Leo only hoped the Roman hadn’t actually sustained any severe brain damage. There wasn’t much more he could do at this point. Upon waking, Leo gave him just a tiny bit more Ambrosia.   
  
“I have no idea if you have brain damage or not from that, so, eat.” Leo’s voice sounded strained, and after a minute of chewing Octavian asked what had happened.  
  
“It said mistress?” Octavian frowned. “Gaia, do you think? It would be unlikely, but…”  
  
Leo said nothing. Octavian carried on regardless.   
“If it was Gaia, that would mean my forces and your forces fell against her in battle, and the camps were surely destroyed.”   
  
Leo took a stuttered breath, muscles tight, and Octavian pursed his lips.  
  
“The same crying trick won’t work on me twice, nor do I have any idea what- _oh_.” Octavian realized a moment too late that it was not a trick. He stopped talking. Leo didn’t turn around, didn’t look for reassurance or support, just wiped at his eyes a few times.  
  
“Don’t you have… _any_ friends?” Leo asked after quite some time, his voice sounded like someone who had been crying, and it was unnerving. Octavian had spent so long thinking of Leo Valdez as the cruel chaotic Greek. “Don’t you have people you want to see again?”  
  
“Not particularly,” Octavian answered with complete honesty. “No one in the cohorts is quite anyone I’d want to call a friend, colleague or advisor possibly but-“  
  
“That’s awful,” Leo said, and for some reason it cut deeper. It wasn’t the first time Octavian had heard those words, but he always passed those people off as overly emotional and dramatic. He was simply practical.  
  
“I have no one left if they’re gone, and I couldn’t even be there,” Leo’s voice cut off again. He sounded choked with grief and anger. “Everything I did, I did for them. To protect them. I did everything I could, if that’s not enough…I don’t know what...I don’t want to be alone.”  
  
Octavian frowned, “I am physically present next to you.”  
  
“Oh _joy_ ,” Leo laughed, but it sounded spiteful. “I’m _so_ happy. Let’s move in together after our homes and families are destroyed, we’ll be a regular odd-couple!”  
  
“Ignoring your dramatics…You said before, you angered a spirit in Canada, one relating to snow or ice, correct?” Octavian cut in, and Leo paused, before shrugging a shoulder in what Octavian took to be an affirmative.  
“Then isn’t it far more likely that those creatures were related to her than Gaia? This isn’t the Earth Mothers domain, and I imagine if she had in fact succeeded, we would have realized already.”  
  
“How do you know?” Leo asked suspiciously, glancing backwards at the blond.   
  
“She’d likely have her Titans come for us the moment they realized we were alive, and we would be brutally ripped apart or kept as slaves, or trophies to her conquest.” Octavian explained like it was the plot of a child’s picture book, and Leo shuddered at the thought.  
  
“I can’t believe I hope you’re right. Khione, by the way, was her name.” Leo added the last part after some thought. “The lady that hates me. Tossed me off the Argo. That’s how I met Calypso. I landed in Ogygia.”

“Chione, the snow nymph?” Octavian filed the comment about Ogygia away for future use.  
  
“Goddess, I think she prefers. She’s the one who had me possessed, and fired upon your camp.”   
  
“Of course she did,” Octavian said dryly.   
  
“I kept you alive, didn’t I?” Leo glared back over his shoulder. “You drooled all over my shoulder, it was disgusting. If I was getting paid, I’d deserve a raise.”  
  
“I-,” Octavian looked down at the wet splotch on Leo’s shirt and flushed. “Surely… that was just rain, or a piece of ice. I do not drool.”  
  
“Uh huh, keep telling yourself that.” Leo snorted, but he wasn’t crying anymore, and didn’t look as sad, and for some reason Octavian liked that.  
  
Scratch that, Octavian was well aware why he liked that, he wasn’t stupid. He just denied the legitimacy of such emotions. It was most certainly a medical malady to be treated, not some idiotic boyish crush.  
Which meant, Octavian realized with some glee, that if it was the Cure, the same thing had to be happening to Leo too.  The savage _graecus_ scum, enraptured with him, Leo would fall to his knees before him. The other scum would follow suit to appease their friend.   
Maybe this would work out to his benefit, if the imbecile became beholden to him.  
  
Leo belched deeply and forcefully, and waved a hand to fan it back at Octavian.   
  
Or maybe not.  
  
-  
  
They were going on hour 20 with that interruption, and Leo felt his eyes beginning to droop. Leo had no idea why he was so tired. He never slept very well, staying up for 24-48 hours wasn’t strange to him. He only occasionally slept well around Piper and Calypso. They calmed him down, helped his mind stop going and going, and let him relax into a slumber.   
The reigns slipped from his hands, and Leo jerked back awake, aware of Octavian chastizing him and reached around to grab the ropes.  
  
“What are you doing, scum, have you lost all 5 brain c-“ Leo’s brain chose to shut off, and he fell into sleep.   
  
Leo saw his friends in his dreams, but they seemed far off and distant.   
He saw Calypso, turned away from him, speaking to a ghostly image.  
The dream swam around, and Leo saw Octavian too, which annoyed him; he standing in pristine purple robes, and looking just as annoyed as ever. Leo looked down, and saw a golden string leading from his heart, up to Octavian’s. The implications were not one he wanted to think about, but a voice spoke to him.  
  
_Your lives have been tied, you are inexplicably linked until death, and your lives are one._   
  
-  
  
Meanwhile, Octavian stared down at the sleeping form of the Greek demigod who had fallen back against his chest and was seeming to be deeply asleep.   
Octavian knew the other demigod was younger than him, but surely this wasn’t normal, was it? Falling asleep so immediately? Like an engine turning off.  
But, Octavian held onto Festus’ ropes, arms on either side of Leo’s sleeping form, and yelled at himself in his head. He should be throwing him off the damn side of the dragon. Slitting his throat. Running him through. But, instead, he just watched every little inhale and exhale. A small snore here and there. Movement fluttering below closed eyes.   
  
Octavian let him sleep for as long as possible.  
  
Until he saw land.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how much will be in the next chapter, but I do want to do explain some of Octavian's character and motives. This chapter was a bit fluffier, kind of, but their time spent in Brazil, and a few other stops gets a bit less sweet. Octavian got issues. (and thankfully, given how little his character was developed in HoO, gives me a bunch of wiggle room.)
> 
> Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing. <3 U  
> Again, I'll be updating a couple other stories, and probably posting a new one. But I actually really like writing this particular fic, so won't be too far off in terms of update time.


	3. Oscar & Madison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've arrived in the Americas. Simple enough to get home, right?  
> Haha, nah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a shorter chapter, but it needed to be cut off where it is before the next chapter. But, hey guys, I'm back again. 
> 
> Fair warning: Octavian is kind of a creep, does mean things to a chicken this chapter, and references (real actual) Roman things that were terrible. No one is really happy. Things will gradually improve, but he's got to be an asshole about it first.

  
  
  


Leo was shaken into consciousness and would have burned whoever had done so if it hadn’t been Octavian, who seemed immune for the time being. Leo had to bide his time.  
  
“I see land,” Octavian said from behind, a bit close for comfort. Leo rubbed sand from his eyes and leaned forward to see.  
  
Sure enough, what Leo hoped was Brazil loomed off in the distance. He really didn’t want to end up like Odysseus, only to realize they had been turned around and sent back to Cape Verde.  
  
As they grew closer it became clear they weren’t at the same port they had left from. A flag waving in the distance was enough to make out they were in the right country. It was thankfully somewhere on the eastern coast of Brazil, and Leo cheered. Octavian didn’t join in, which wasn’t surprising but at the same time he _was_ being unusually quiet.  
  
“Is that Rio?” Leo asked, leaning further and further until he was essentially plastered over Festus’ neck. The dragon made a happy noise, a chuff of steam and smoke. Leo scratched his friend around the ear, happy to at least have him along on the ride.

“Doubtful, unless we’re significantly further south than we should be.” Octavian seemed oddly tame, and unexcited about the fact they had just traveled from Greece to Brazil on dragon-back. Leo felt almost insulted.  
  
“What’s with you?” Leo raised an eyebrow, turning to look at him. “Shouldn’t you be all, ‘ _no, you absolute brown potato’_?”   
Octavian looked at him with a relatively blank expression for him.  
  
“Why did you give me a _horrific_ attempt at a …British accent? Was that British?”  
  
“You just sort of look like you should be British, I don’t know. You’re the one being weird.” Leo aimed Festus to find a place where they could stop and regroup. Octavian didn’t say anything for a minute.  
  
“You fell asleep on me. For 5 hours.” Octavian didn’t sound angry or annoyed, just like he was stating a fact. Octavian not sounding annoyed was nearly cause for worry. Maybe he did have a head injury.  
  
“Boohoo, asshole, so did you?” Leo was baffled. He wasn’t great with people, but Octavian was barely people. More like a bird in snake skin.  
  
“We’re here now,” Octavian continued like it explained anything. Leo nodded, exaggerating the movement, mocking.  
  
“Uh, yeah, in like…two days we’ll be back in New York. This has actually gone far quicker than I would have ever expected.” Octavian just huffed, like Leo didn’t understand, and he didn’t.  
“Okay, pal, while you pout and be weird, I’m going to land us somewhere for the night.”  
  
  
  
In the matter of just a few days Leo found himself in North America, Greece, Ogygia, North America, Ogygia again, _Greece_ again, Africa, and South America.  
  
There was a hillside outside a more remote part of Fortaleza to camp. Picked up some more things, Leo worked for a few hours on repairing anything on Festus that needed it. But, after so much relative silence Leo began to almost miss Octavian snipping at him.   
Leo was good at talking though, especially as things got awkward. Sometimes he was the reason things got awkward, but no one could say so if he talked over them.   
So, he tried to tell Octavian over food about the 7’s travels to Greece, everyone they met and fought. Octavian was obviously listening, he frowned when Apollo came up, looked disbelieving when Leo told his side of the events in New Rome. But, still, Octavian barely said anything. Just watched and listened.   
  
Leo should have expected as much, it wasn’t as though they liked one another. Octavian wasn’t suddenly going to get over all his very many issues.  Not unless some cosmic force- and then the dream Leo had rushed back to the forefront of his mind, and he dropped his multitool spork midsentence.  
  
“Our lives were split between us,” Leo gasped out suddenly, and Octavian looked up in surprise.   
  
“What are you blathering on about now?” Octavian grumbled, more like an angry old grandfather than the power absorbed soldier from before.   
  
“I had a dream, or a vision, whatever - while I was asleep. That must have been why I fell asleep so easily; it didn’t make sense, I don’t do that with just anyone, I have to really trust someone to sleep around them” Octavian made a weird face, but Leo continued. “A voice told me! That our lives were essentially split between each other. I…I think that must be why. That’s why we can’t injure one another.”  
  
Octavian stared, looked puzzled about something, and began to stab at a piece of shrimp in his food. “That explains that then.”  
  
“Explains what then?” It was like _pulling teeth_ with this guy.   
  
“I find myself inexplicably not hating you at times. That must be the same reason.” Octavian replied, and Leo began to put the pieces together. Octavian, left alone with an unconscious Leo, would have likely attempted to throw him from Festus. He might have been able to do so too, it probably wouldn’t technically count as injuring Leo. But, maybe, just maybe, Octavian found himself not wanting to kill him. It would be a total upset in Octavian’s belief system as of late, his vengeance.  
For normal human beings with souls, that would be expected, but Leo wasn’t entirely convinced Octavian had one of those.  
  
“Or, picture this, we survived a life and death scenario together and have been forced to spend time together. Just maybe, common experience might lead to… tolerating each other more?” Leo offered, voice dripping in sarcasm, that Octavian seemed to be not a fan of.  
  
“You don’t understand anything I’ve said.” The centurion stood, and left the campsite at a brisk pace.   
  
“ _CLEARLY_ ,” Leo found himself yelling back, before spending the next hour complaining to Festus.  
  
  
  
In the morning, Leo discovered Octavian had returned some point while he had been asleep. They didn’t say much besides discussing plans to leave. The city lights had been beautiful at night but there were no major landmarks Leo recognized, so it was best that they waited until morning before leaving.  
  
Octavian was still being quiet, though he kept staring at Leo in a way that was extremely disconcerting.   
But, they had to keep going, and so after a few hours the two young men found themselves looking towards landing in Caracas, Venezuela. The city was beautiful and parts of the towns were so colorful from the sky Leo was eager to get a closer look.  
  
“You do realize that Caracas is one of the most violent cities on the face of the planet, don’t you?” Octavian sneered, or Leo assumed he did from behind him.   
  
“Maybe to you,” Leo sounded like he was teasing, being friendly, and that set Octavian off more.  
  
“I’m not talking about pick pockets, _imbecile_. I’m talking homicides, drugs, forced prostitution.” Octavian leaned in closer to the pointed tip of Leo’s ear. “I wonder what someone would do with you, hm? You’re no more Venezuelan than I am - but you’re smaller, more compact, big eyes. You know, back in the Roman empire, what they would do to _non-citizens_ like yourself? It’s not pleasant. _Pathicus_. _Concubinus_.”  
  
“Uh, would they be _super_ creepy about it?” Leo pulled away with big eyes- goddamnit, he didn’t want to prove Octavian right. “What the fuck, dude. Like. Wow. None of that was normal.”  
  
Octavian’s face went from slime to anger in .5 seconds. “We should land somewhere else! This isn’t safe!”  
  
“It isn’t safe…for… _me_ …is what you’re trying to say…in a gross way?” Leo asked slowly, he was fluent in Spanish, Morse, machine,  and English kind of; Leo could learn Octavian.   
Octavian fumed, but didn’t disagree.   
  
“Oh my gods, you’re trying to be nice, aren’t you? Was that what that was?”  
  
“No! No. I’m being practical.” Octavian wanted to turn away for effect, but they were still in the air.    
  
“Aw,” Leo faked a coo, “I wore you down, huh. Happens to everybody. Everyone loves Leo. Seriously though, you were about one sentence away from a restraining order, knock that shit off.”

“It’s true though,” Octavian glared, after they landed, as if Leo was considering him the criminal. “Non-citizens and slaves, they had no rights in Rome, not next to a free man. You could do whatever you wanted to them.”

“Why do you _know_ that?” Leo hissed, shuddering at the idea. “What the fuck kind of schools do they have in New Rome?”  
  
“I never said it was good, I just said it happened. It’s history, it’s not always pleasant. American history isn’t either, is it?” Octavian crossed his arms, after getting off the dragon. Then, Octavian pondered the possibility maybe Leo didn’t know much of American history if he’d rarely been in school. For a moment, Octavian felt a bit guilty, a not particularly familiar emotion for the young man.   
  
“So, you admit it then?” Leo asked, and Octavian didn’t have even the foggiest idea what he meant. “You admit that Rome wasn’t all great all the time, and some of their rules were dumb as fuck?”  
  
“That isn’t the case with New Rome, we’ve improved upon the old, cut off the rotten pieces like a prime steak.” Octavian said proudly, and Leo could tell he was beginning to rant again.   
  
“Consider this: Maybe you still have more to fix?”

“No,” Octavian answered instantly, and Leo looked at him unbelieving.  
  
“So, you’re happy then? This,” Leo waved at him, and Octavian frowned. “This is the face of a happy person?”  
  
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”  
  
“I’m sure you don’t. It’s not like you have been pouting for the last 24 hours or anything, just because you realized you didn’t entirely hate me. Normal behavior.” Leo slid down along Festus’ body and pulled up his legs. “Goodnight Octavian.”

The blond stuttered for a moment, before replying back, “it’s…barely 1900 hours!”  
  
“I’m ignoring you by feigning sleep. Goodnight.”  
  
Octavian was silent for a while, before muttering out a goodnight in return. Leo smiled a little to himself. He really _was_ wearing the Roman down. Maybe they’d get along before they were back home, that would be beneficial to relations between the two camps. Leo had no idea is Jason would return to Camp Jupiter, or maybe he already had. Leo still had to apologize to Frank and Hazel too. If the camps were at war, that might become difficult.  
  
  
  
  
The next morning Leo realized flying for Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic wasn’t going to happen, as the sky darkened angrily, and lightning flashed off in the distance. Not a great place for a metal thing to be, and Leo wasn’t entirely sure if he’d survive a lightning blast and was fairly certain Octavian wouldn’t. Part of him hoped the lightning was Jason, who had somehow managed to find out where Leo was and was coming for him; but given Leo couldn’t contact anyone, that seemed unlikely.   
  
Octavian later announced with pomp and circumstance that he would be going into town to do whatever it was Octavian did. Leo decided after some thought to tail him, just to make sure he wasn’t about to sacrifice a puppy or some other thing children loved. Elmo? Fortnite?  
  
Leo could hear parrots in the trees, and looked up with some amazement at the colors. He didn’t know much about birds, but they were a beautiful teal blue and golden color. They were also noisy as fuck. Continuing down the road led Leo near a broken down Spanish fort it looked like, a familiar aesthetic to parts of Texas as well, as well as a small road led into the outskirts of the city.   
Houses lined the hills, their colors were also beautiful, but many weren’t in good shape. Leo was distracted enough, he lost sight of Octavian, which seemed like it should have been hard to do, given he was like a nearly six foot pale blond guy in Central America. Octavian should have stood out like a sore thumb, or a …pale dead thumb. Tourists may be more frequent in a capitol like Caracas, but they weren’t that close to anywhere tourists would visit. It was all houses, small markets, bicycles, bus stops. Not malls, skyscrapers, nothing of note.  
  
Leo made it to a tiny shop which was selling food, and asked the first person he saw if they had seen the blond. The woman in the shop looked at Leo with some curiosity, and suspicion, before asking him where he was from. Leo hadn’t even stopped to think he had a different accent, a different dialect of Spanish, even though he was fluent. A few other patrons in the small shop watched him with a mix of curiosity and skepticism.   
Leo didn’t blame them, but right now it wasn’t hugely helpful. He apologized and left quickly, not wanting Octavian to wander off too far, because for some reason Leo was actually worried about the guy; he might end up without a kidney in a back alleyway somewhere.   
  
He saw a few kids playing with chalk in the street, a mother watching them and drinking something that looked warm.   
  
“Have you seen a tall skinny dumb white guy?” Leo asked, “we’re on vacation.”  
  
“Here?” The mother asked with some amount of amusement. Leo swallowed, and nodded.  
  
“My father was from here, so, I wanted …to show him around. We’re…Canadian…from Canada.” The woman took a sip of her drink, appraising him wearily. Leo forgot who, but someone had told him if he was overseas to never actually claim to be American. Actually, it was probably Frank. Also, he may have said to just not say anything to anyone. And, it was only about 4 days ago.   
  
“He’s your boyfriend, then?” a little girl asked, all big brown eyes that reminded Leo of himself and Hazel all at once. She had a front tooth missing, it was adorable.

“… _Yes_?” Leo answered, doubling down on his lie, and feeling a bit ill inside. He’d never actually dated anyone, Calypso dumped him before they really went anywhere, and now he was standing here saying he was dating Octavian of all possible people.   
  
“He went to buy a chicken. His Spanish is not very good,” another woman leaned out the window of a close by home. Astonishingly Leo realized she seemed to be chastising Leo for not teaching Octavian better Spanish.   
  
Leo ran a hand down his face. Of course, Octavian went to buy a chicken. “I told him no- Okay, which way is the market?”  
  
“Go down this street, then turn right, then left, then go straight. You should reach the marketplace in like 10 minutes.”  Leo nodded his thanks, and for their effort did a fake little magic trick for the kids, using his fire for part of the act. They clapped, and the ladies laughed, and Leo waved and ran off.   
  
  
As he was rounding a corner, a hand caught him, and Leo found himself looking up at a man that was the spitting image of a guy he knew in Houston.   
  
“Never seen you before,” the man appraised him, and Leo realized there were a few guys behind him. They weren’t all that much older than Leo. The guy Leo knew in Houston was not a nice dude. Leo gulped before dishing out Valdez Patented Bullshit.  
  
“I’m on a school trip,” Leo sighed, pulling back. Leo was nothing if not adaptable, he had to be. “My idiot classmate wandered off. You seen a tall white guy, kind of looks like a movie villain?”  
  
The guys exchanged looks and snickered between themselves. “You mean the one who cut open a chicken in the courtyard? Yeah, we saw him.”  
  
“Damnit, I told him no blood sacrifices! How many times did I tell him? Huh? Everyday! No blood sacrifice! Is that so hard?” The men looked mildly concerned, which allowed Leo to push away and run off.   
  
  
Leo found Octavian sitting in the middle of a mostly empty and overgrown courtyard of a building, but a small audience had grown along one side, pointing and whispering.   
He couldn’t blame them, his travel companion was currently muttering something, with his hands deep inside the bloody carcass of a rooster.   
  
“Octavian, what the fuck are you doing?“ Leo hissed, inching closer. “What did I say about blood sacrifices? Please tell me that was already dead.”  
  
Octavian looked up at him, and Leo took a step back. His eyes were completely white. He was in some sort of trance. Octavian pulled one hand free and began to run it over the stones below them, writing something.  
  
It was in Latin, and Leo couldn’t understand it. That didn't matter, the people in the crowd grew (understandably) increasingly disturbed and upset watching what was happening.   
  
“Octavian,” Leo whispered, crouching down alongside him. “We need to go.”  
  
Leo heard the whispering grow, one mention of dark magic in the crowd, another mentioned the devil, another yet the antichrist. They _really_ needed to leave.   
  
And then, like it had never happened, Octavian stood up, eyes back to normal. He walked over to a water fountain to wash the blood off his hands.   
  
“The real thing is so much more effective,” Octavian looked highly pleased with himself, and turned to see Leo. “Oh, you’re here, _graecus_. Well then, you can witness for yourself my true powers.”  
  
“Is your powers getting us arrested or killed by a terrified mob, because I’d really rather not.” Leo tried to grab him by the sleeve to pull him away from the scene. But Octavian shook off his hand like it was diseased before going back to the writing on the ground. “By the way, please tell me that chicken was already dead before you played the worst game of Operation ever.”   
  
Leo was ignored.  
  
“Do you know what the Sea of Monsters is?” Octavian asked with a frown, and Leo shook his head. It sounded familiar though, and that alone probably meant nothing good. “This portion here is in Greek.”  
  
Leo felt as confused as Octavian looked. “I do not know Greek,” Octavian added like Leo was stupid.  
  
“Uh, let me see, that says…” Leo trailed off, as he read the words below. “I, uh, don’t know.”  
  
Octavian sent him a scathing look, and remarked about how unhelpful Leo was, before simply stomping off like he hadn’t just traumatized a crowd in a public square.  
  
Leo stared down at the words, and gulped down a feeling of dread that had begun gnawing at the back of his mind for the last few days.   
He knew exactly what it said.  
  
_Two People, One Life.  Fated souls._  
  
It wasn’t particularly subtle. It was obvious enough that the first portion meant Leo and Octavian, his own vision seemed to tell him that already. But, Leo had figured that was a fluke, some horrific turn of events that occurred because of the Physicians cure. Leo had up until now been viewing the issue as a reversible one.   
But this, this implied they were _fated_?  
  
They were _not_ soulmates, Leo told himself. That wasn’t what it said. It was just. Implying it. Heavily.    
Leo barely even believed in such a thing let alone applying it to himself and someone like Octavian. A man who was all too eager to kill him, had attempted to, was seemingly only being stopped by their precarious situation.   
  
Not to mention they were both men, and Leo didn’t really swing that way. Probably. If he did, it would be for someone like Jason.  _Not_ Octavian.  
Some horrible little voice in his mind reminded him that Jason happened to be a blond roman, and guess who else- and then Leo stomped that voice down.  
  
“Calypso,” Leo muttered to himself as he walked back to their camp. He liked Calypso. Calypso was generally not an asshole. She was lovely, talented, smart. Only occasionally an asshole, not consistently.   
  
“Are you still mooning over the nymph?” Octavian asked with a sneer, closer to Leo than he had realized. “I could hardly approve of such a relationship.”  
  
“Good thing I never asked for your approval,” Leo said, giving him a wide berth as they walked.   
  
“She seduces feeble minds into doing her bidding, enchanting them to stay on her island.” Octavian continued, and Leo began to huff, but then Octavian said something Leo hadn’t entirely stopped to consider.  
  
“Plus, she’s even had children already.”  
  
“She did what now- what?” Leo stopped walking, and stared at Octavian, who turned to look at him like he was a petulant child.  
  
“Have you _never_ read a book? She’s immortal, she isn’t some…16 or 18 or however old you assume her to be. She bore to Odysseus at least one child, possibly more, in his years of imprisonment. That isn’t even detailing the other of hundreds of men who likely washed up upon her shore and into her loins.”  
  
Leo’s jaw clenched. “ _Shut. Up_.”  
  
“Believe what you want,” Octavian snorted and turned back around. “It isn’t as though she’ll be bearing any of your children…”  
  
Leo really wished he had the ability to hurt Octavian. “At least I can have children. No one will ever sleep with someone like you, unless you paid or threatened them.”   
Personal attacks weren’t as satisfying, and felt a bit YouTube comment section-y but when nothing else work, Leo regressed.   
  
Octavian sent him a dry, though mildly amused look. “You really are a child. You think I’ve never had sex? Regardless if they like me personally, I have status. I’ve had my pick. I don’t have to pay or threaten anyone. They come to me, and then when I’m done they leave. As it should be before I become head of a household.”  
Octavian wasn’t lying, though it also wasn’t as common as he was implying either. But, still, New Rome was still filled with young teenage demigods with hormones. Things happen.

But, that was almost more disgusting to Leo. “You’ll never find love, and that _is_ sad.”  
  
“I have no need for such a thing,” Octavian responded effortlessly, like it was a joke. “My status, my armies, my nation. That is all I care for. At some point I will likely create some heir to my family, but I care very little to think of marriage or anything of the sort. Love is for those without real power. It is simply a creation of the brain, chemicals tricking you. You, however, will end up alone and still care about such idiotic things.”  
  
Octavian turned, and with a cruel smile facing him. “And… I believe that bothers you a _hell_ of a lot more than it bothers me.”  
  
Leo aimed a punch at his face, but it stopped short, and Octavian looked him over for a moment before he tutted at him and began to walk away. Leo’s skin had begun to glow in a testament to his anger.  
  
“What about soulmates?” Leo bit out after a moment, and Octavian didn’t even bother to look at him.

“This isn’t a fairy-tale," Octavian scoffed. "There are no such things.”   
  
“Plato wrote about them, didn’t he? One body, one soul, four arms and legs. You keep telling me to read a book, so surely _you’d_ know that much.”  
  
“Plato was Greek,” Octavian responded like it explained everything.   
  
“I lied,” Leo said finally. “Back there. I could understand what you wrote in Greek.”  
  
Octavian froze solid in the middle of the street, slowly turning. There was obvious anger in his expression, coiling under his skin like a snake.  
  
“That person it mentioned…Your _soulmate_. It’s too bad they’ll never love you.” Leo walked past Octavian without meeting his eyes. “Or maybe, too bad for them. They’re the one getting stuck with a monster like you.”  
  
Leo felt sick to his stomach for the rest of the night, tossing and turning.   
  
  
No one had won that conversation. Personal attacks were not effective.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading folks. If it's not obvious, Octavian is stepping up the douchery because he honestly doesn't know what to do with how he feels. This is ...progress. Kind of.
> 
> Anyway, For those who don't know, about a week after I last updated this story I was in a pretty nasty car crash going about 70mph/110kph. Was on pain meds for over a month due to breaking a bone in my spine, and other minor injuries. Things aren't terrible now, but it definitely knocked me away from writing anything for a bit.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reviews and well wishes! I hope you enjoyed it.


	4. Art & Carney

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo gets a toothache, so they play doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been less than a week, but I actually really like writing this.   
> Introducing some backstory, and because Rick didn't, I can do virtually whatever I want with Octavian. What's his last name even? It's Jones now. Octavian Hubert Melville Jones. Not really, but I'm just making a point here.

   
  


Octavian didn’t ask Leo about it again until that night, but occasionally watched him. It was like how a scientist watched a specimen.   
  
“Who?” Octavian asked after a silent dinner, and Leo didn’t need to have him explain what he meant.  
  
“It doesn’t matter.” Leo answered, stabbing at a piece of cooked carrot. He’d fix whatever it was forcing them together. Fate? No way. How could fate be so cruel?  
Leo already knew that answer.  
  
“Why do you care? You’ve already said you think it’s childish and stupid.”  
  
Octavian’s eyes narrowed, though he didn’t deny it. Leo knew the augur must have suspected something, but it didn’t seem to be a subject either one wanted to touch on just yet  
  
It wasn’t even 0700 hours when Leo woke up to find Octavian gone. Leo cursed, and ran out of their camp site while Festus gave an annoyed puff at the commotion.   
Leo didn’t have to search much it turned out; Octavian wasn’t that far off. He was looking up, into the sky at the birds flying high in the clouds.  
  
“What are you doing?” Leo asked quietly stepping up next to him, half expecting to get yelled at regardless.  
  
“I’m an augur,” Octavian said simply, not looking away from the sky.  
  
“What, do you want to catch one and dig into it?” Leo grimaced, looking at the closest macaw.  
  
“No, that was not augury. That was haruspex, which is what I prefer. But, there are times when augury is a preferred means of telling the will of the Gods.” Octavian explained, and didn’t sound as douchey as he normally did, which was especially surprising to Leo after what had happened yesterday. So, Leo decided to push his luck.  
  
“Isn’t it odd that you don’t respect your mom’s profession, yet you’re a glorified fortune teller?” Octavian did glare at him for that one.  
  
“Fortune tellers are charlatans; don’t compare what I do to what they do.” Octavian turned back to look at the birds. He notably didn’t mention his mother.  
  
Leo twiddled his thumbs for a minute or two, looking up at the sky and then back at the other boy.   
“…My mom was a mechanic. Had her own shop. Raised the money herself, started her own business.”  
  
“A respectable achievement for the mother of someone _so_ annoying,” Octavian sighed, crossing his arms. He was getting the (correct) impression that Leo wasn’t going to stop talking just yet.  
  
“Her family didn’t support her,” Leo continued. “She always wished they would. After everything, her sisters never had any faith in her. Thought it was stupid. She didn’t want to prove them wrong or anything, just wished they’d congratulate her, tell her what she did mattered in some way.”

Octavian raised a hand to pinch between his nasal bridge. “I assume you’re attempting to poorly make a point.”  
  
“Well Sherlock, your observation skills are impeccable. What I’m saying is… your mom isn’t always going to be around. Even if you don’t personally like her profession, you should tell her that she’s still important to you.” Leo shrugged a shoulder.  
  
“You’re projecting your own loss onto my situation. My mother has done nothing to deserve respect or support of any kind.” Octavian didn’t even have to seemingly think about it.  
  
Leo bit his lip and entangled his hands behind his back. “Does she love you?”  
  
“No,” Octavian said immediately, and didn’t look like he cared to take the comment back or elaborate any more.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Octavian glanced at Leo’s words. “…Even if you’re an asshole, you deserve to be loved. Sorry.”  
  
Octavian didn’t say anything, just gave a weak huff and went back to looking at birds.  
  
Leo stood there for a few minutes, just standing next to him, before finally he left to make food. It wasn’t until a half hour passed that Octavian came back to their camp.  
  
“I don’t believe we should cross the Caribbean. We should go over land.” Octavian announced, looking oddly serious. “I have no idea what this 'Sea of Monsters' nonsense is about, but in my consultations, I believe going across the ocean is not a wise idea. There was a space, off in the distance, that I sensed no birds. It was like a darkness, or a cloud shrouding my vision.”  
  
Leo crossed his legs and took a deep breath in. “Okay. Well, that would add probably another week to our trip. Again, that’s only if everything goes perfectly. Which, you’ve been around me long enough by now to know that’s not going to happen.”  
  
Octavian sat down to grab a plate. “Not if we go to Camp Jupiter.”  
  
“Your troops and my friends are in New York,” Leo pointed out. Octavian grudgingly accepted his point but didn’t look happy about it. “Or…Maybe not? It could have been long enough they returned to California, I don’t know. We can split up once we hit the US, but if we go up into Texas, it is still going to take far longer than going across the Caribbean.” Leo drew a rough map out in the dirt on the stone floor of the old Spanish fort they in.  
  
“I understand that, but I don’t believe it to be wise.” Octavian was sounding like the man Leo first met in New Rome, arguing with Reyna. He was a politician through and through.  
  
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, okay?” Leo looked him in the eyes. “Contrary to what you might think, I trust you on this. But I’ve escaped Ogygia twice now. We’ve both come back from the dead. We crossed the Atlantic. The entire Atlantic! Plus, do you really want to be around me that much longer?”  
  
Octavian said nothing.  
  
Leo continued, with a flourish of a fork. “What is the Caribbean going to do to us that we haven’t seen already?”  
  
It was the wrong thing to say.  
  
They went a bit further west to avoid as much open ocean as possible, they spent a night in the colorful Cap Haitien in Haiti before they continued north. Cap Haitien was more tropical than their previous stops had seemed, the smell of ocean air moving between sweet plants and trees was comforting. It didn't last long, and they'd soon tire of the smell of ocean air.  
  
The plan was to continue up through the Bahamas and then enter Floridian waters.   
They made it barely off the coast of Haiti, before finding themselves in the Bermuda Triangle  
  
At roughly their 10th monster attack in a single day, Leo was more than a bit frazzled, and Octavian looked more crazed than usual. Festus had taken a battering and began to clunk, making noises that told Leo they needed to land.  
   
_This_ was, apparently, the Sea of Monsters.   
  
They came over an island of sand, and Leo called out that he had to land; even Octavian didn’t seem to mind the pitstop. His hands were scrunched into the fabrics of the back of Leo’s shirt, eyes wide, and they were both soaking wet from the rain.  
Leo was pretty sure he knew what would happen the second the landed but wasn’t looking forward to it regardless.  
  
“ _What did I say_?” Octavian yelled the moment they were off Festus and touching sand. “I said we go over land, didn’t I? The birds never lie!”

“Okay, I wasn’t counting on there to be more monsters than fish in the ocean, but that doesn’t mean this still isn’t the quickest route! I’ll just fix Festus, and we can go.” Leo pulled some supplies out of his belt, and glanced up to see Octavian looking at him, a muscle under one eye was twitching.  
  
“If I could kill you, I would, right now. Right this very moment.” Leo rolled his eyes, walked past him, and patted him on the arm.  
  
“I’m sure you would, buddy.”  
  


Their situation didn’t improve from there, a few hours later, they tried to take off again. Within minutes they were once again battered by venti and several other creatures and monsters. They had to stop once again, back on the same sandbar.   
  
Octavian was drilling holes into the back of his head every moment longer they spent. Leo’s patience was wearing thin.  
  
They spent the night, taking watch, occasionally fighting something that crawled up out of the depths of the ocean.   
There were moments though that sometimes Leo forgot that Octavian had been in the military since he was 11 and was just as good with a weapon as Jason.  Sure, not as cool looking – hard to be when you’re not the son of Zeus, but still effective. Plus, there was something about him. Jason was like a superhero, but Octavian looked more real, more raw. It looked effortless for Jason, but every kill Octavian made reflected in his eyes.   
  
Leo would look away then, stomping down any admiration. He didn’t like Octavian, but Leo had spent his years living with enough people he disliked. Leo could survive. Octavian, on the other hand, seemed to be growing more and more irate, and had been caught on occasion whispering fairly gory murder plots under his breath. Thankfully, not _all_ of them revolved around Leo.  
  
It continued to grow worse. The next day, and the next, they would advance, then fail, then land, then try again, and fail once more.   
Leo still tried to convince Octavian that it would still be a shorter path. But as the days grew on, eventually it had been another week here alone. They managed to hop from sandbar to small island to sandbar to island, but were still making very little progress and sometimes being pushed back to an island they realized they had already stayed on.   
  
“Two _weeks_ ,” Octavian stabbed the sand. His pale blonde hair was dirty and limp. “I have been with you for two weeks now! You should have heeded my ad-“  
  
“I’m _sorry_! Okay?” Leo yelled back, tired, and wanting a bath. “I apologize, Octavian. You were _right_ , I was wrong. Are you happy?”  
  
Octavian stood up, and Leo followed suit. They did this sometimes, as they couldn’t physically fight, they’d stand close and yell or pace or glower just to blow off some steam.   
  
“No, I’m _not_ happy. How could I be _happy_? How could I possibly be happy stuck with some idiotic child, some _graecus_ , some clod, some…some… _Texan_!” Leo gasped in fake disbelief, crossing his hand over his chest.

“Your language, sir!”  
  
“You didn’t listen to the single other person in your group that has the gift of prophecy! No wonder you all die before you’re done with puberty, you’re all idiots!” Leo rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue it. That upset Octavian more. “Is this how your mother died, huh? Did you get her killed too?”

Leo’s hand fell, and his body grew tense. Octavian realized immediately his advantage.   
  
“I’m right, aren’t I? That’s it, isn’t it? You’re a bunch of suicidal children that gets everyone else around them killed. Is that why your little sea witch didn’t want to come with? She knew what you’d do to her?”  
  
“Do you feel good hurting people?” Leo asked blankly, voice low. Octavian came closer until he was only a breath away from Leo.  
  
“ _I love it._ ” His voice was just above a whisper and so full of hate and malice, Leo imagined that Gaea herself probably liked him more than Octavian did. Leo pushed down angry tears later that night.  
  
A number of days later, their situation had not improved. They hadn’t spoken to one another in quite some time, and their take off was silent. Leo continued making weapons for Octavian, knives, a sword when he had the metal to do so with – but that didn’t mean they talked about it. Even when the monsters came, they fought by themselves. Leo, the epitome of Greek chaos, throwing whatever he had, burning up anything too close – Octavian, calculating, methodical, nearly sadistic.   
  
While flying, something smashed into their side and both boys were jolted to the side, but Leo had the misfortune of hitting his face against Festus’ raised wing. Leo wasn’t knocked out, but he had a gash along the side of his head, and something felt immediately wrong inside of his mouth. He spit a chunk of broken tooth into his hand. Leo stared at it with some horror.   
Behind him, Octavian laughed.  
  
They landed yet again, this time on a larger island with some greenery. Festus would take more repairs than he had before, and Leo was nursing his aching head and jaw the entire time. It didn’t speed up the repair process.  
His tooth hurt quite a bit where it was cracked, but Leo ignored it at first. When it got too bad, he took a bite of ambrosia. It didn’t do anything to ease the pain. The nerves were exposed, and ambrosia wouldn’t bring back the bone that had been lost. He tried to ignore it some more, but it continued to get steadily worse.  
  
It got to the point that Octavian had stopped antagonizing him and was just studying him once again from time to time from the corner of his eye.  
  
A few days later, and it was too much to handle. He couldn’t eat or sleep; or more importantly, work. Leo walked over to Octavian who was sat in front of their campfire and sat next to him. Octavian just appraised him, saying nothing.  
  
“Do you want to hurt me?” Leo asked, with just a hint of lisp from his broken tooth, and Octavian cocked an eyebrow.  
“Do you want revenge? For everything? For firing on your camp, for starting a war, for getting you killed, for getting you stuck with me. Do you want revenge?” Leo prodded again, and Octavian gave just the slightest nod, barely noticeable.   
  
Leo held up a pair of pliers.   
  
“I can’t,” Octavian said, and they both knew he meant that he wasn’t able to cause Leo pain, rather than not wanting to.  
  
“I know, I need you to hold _me_ steady as I pull out the rest of my tooth.” Octavian considered this, before inching forward until their knees were touching and put his hands firmly on the other boy’s thighs.

Leo smiled ruefully and lifted the pliers up to his mouth. “To Rome, right?”

The pliers pinched down on the tooth, and Leo immediately jolted in pain. Octavian stared, expression unchanging. Leo tried to pull, he did, but it hurt so badly his hands went weak at the pain.   
Then, a hand wrapped around Leo’s and clenched, pulling down in one swift motion. Leo’s mouth immediately filled with blood, and he doubled over in agony, head hitting Octavian’s chest.

Octavian looked on in wonder at the broken and bloodied tooth that he held in the pliers.   
Leo spat out the mouthful of blood, sitting up to grab a rag to stuff in his mouth. He met Octavian’s eyes, and his heart sunk.  
  
Octavian had caused him _pain_. On purpose. Which meant-  
  
A knife was against his neck within a blink of the eye, but Octavian simply tapped it lightly against his jugular.

“How strange,” the blond said. “I still cannot hurt you.”  
  
“I don’t know about you, but that hurt like a motherfucker.” Is what Leo tried to say, but with the rag in his now swollen mouth, it sounded more like, ‘ _abdonnobowuathortwiamofoger_ ’  
  
Octavian said nothing, just looking at Leo’s face until Leo began to feel a bit unnerved.

“Yes, well, anyway.” Octavian moved away, not bothering to explain. Leo didn’t push him to. Octavian kept the tooth though, which Leo thought was kind of creepier than usual for Octavian.  
The following day, with some ambrosia, Leo felt back to normal. Besides the fact he now was down one entire tooth and had the misfortune of lisping still on occasion. But, no pain, which was what really mattered. He felt pretty good.  
  
  
Then Octavian just had to go and mention what day it was.  
  
“You’re sure?” Leo asked once again, and Octavian looked insulted. Of course he was sure, he was Octavian.

“Why do you care what day it is?” Octavian asked, with only a small sneer, which was improvement. In fact, ever since the tooth debacle, Octavian had been relatively not horrible.   
  
“My birthday was two days ago, apparently.” Leo sighed, and patted Festus whose teeth began to spin and whirr. “Yeah, thanks bud.”

“You’re 16 then?” Octavian asked, much closer than he had been before. Leo nodded slowly, unsure what the Roman was playing at now. “I see.”

“You’re really weird sometimes, you know that. And…so, _me_ saying that is…like…it means you’re really weird.” Leo laughed, expecting to see Octavian annoyed, but he just tilted his head up before walking away. The blond vanished out of sight along the beach, behind palm trees and long grasses

“Like, he’s killed people, right?” Leo whispered to Festus, who agreed. “I’m traveling with fucking Hannibal Lecter.”  
Festus creaked, and Leo glowered. “No, that does _not_ reflect anything about the food I cook.”  
  
That night, Octavian showed up with what appeared to be a giant shell of some sort. It was…really pretty. An over-sized scalloped shell, hints of pinks, golds, and opalescent.  
   
“What you got there, Ariel?” Octavian sat it down in front of him, and Leo stared at it, blood pressure rising. “Is this a present, did you get me a birthday present? Oh my god, Octavian, I will literally pee if you-“

“It’s a plate, to make cake on. You make the cake. I will eat it. It’s the only part of common birthday traditions I appreciate.”   
  
“I- O…Okay, I’ll…. make a cake then?” Leo was completely astounded. In Octavian's own way, it _was_  a gift. Sort of. It was probably as much of a gift as Octavian had ever given to anyone.  He surely must have spent some amount of time trying to find it. Leo didn’t understand the guy, maybe he felt bad about the tooth thing, but Leo wasn’t going to question it.  
  
The small island that night smelled sweet.  
  
-  
  
Leo fell asleep, into a deep slumber, and awoke into a dream. A blond woman was sitting at a coffee table, talking to a dark haired man. A baby could be heard screaming and crying somewhere in the background, begging for attention.  
  
“Julia, don’t you want to get the boy?” The man asked, glancing towards the hallway that the cries were coming from. The woman looked up, green eyes, similar in color to Percy’s. She was lovely, slim, sharp eyes.  
  
“He needs to cry it out, or he’ll never learn.” She went back to nursing a cup. “How else will he survive?”  
  
“He’s my nephew, can’t I say hello?” The man asked, looking perturbed by the interaction. “He may be a demigod, but Julia, this can’t be healthy.”  
  
She ignored him.   
  
-  
  
Octavian opened his eyes into a foreign place, an old woman rocked an infant in her arms. She was whispering something to the child, but Octavian couldn’t make it out.  
  
A young woman ran into the room, hair up in a messy curly ponytail, looking a bit frantic. “Ah, Tia, you’re alright then? It’s okay for me to go?”  
  
The old woman smiled up at her, “my dear, everything is fine.”  
  
The younger woman grinned, and it looked familiar, before leaning down and pecking the baby on the head. “I’ll be back before you know it, mijo.”  
  
And with that, it was just the old woman, the infant, and Octavian sitting in what appeared to be a small kitchen. The woman was humming songs, and they seemed familiar for unknown reasons. She slowly got up, rocking the baby, and moved towards the counter.  
  
Octavian watched in horror as she placed the child inside the oven, and turned it on.  
  
-  


The scene changed rapidly, and suddenly the same woman, Julia, was standing with a small boy next to a gravestone. The boy had big pale blue eyes, and pale blond hair.   
  
“How unfortunate,” Julia said, face not conveying any sadness, though her eyes did seem to be watery. “You made a stupid mistake, for a stupid reason.”  
  
“Mama,” the boy tugged at her dress, looking up at her. She pushed his hand away. “Where is uncle Ryan?”  
  
“He trusted the wrong people,” was all his mother said. The boy looked back at the stone. “People will betray you, son. It’s not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. It’s simply human nature.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Don’t worry about the why, just protect yourself from the when.”  
  
-  
  
A small boy sat in a busy classroom, he was smaller than the other students, and wasn’t paying attention to them either. He was drawing, crudely, with crayons and whatever else was near him.  
Octavian stood over him, appraising him within the dream. He wondered what happened to the baby from the vision before.  
  
The drawing was of a ship in part, and on the side were doodles of creatures, robots, and skeletons. It was quite good for as young as the boy was. But, it was all too soon ripped out from under his fingers.   
  
“What’s this?” A bigger boy asked, looking down at the picture and laughing. “Wow, this sucks!”  
  
“Give it back!” The little boy called out, looking nervous all the same. “Please,” he added on as an afterthought.   
  
The bigger boy just ripped it into pieces. The table had scorch marks on it.  
  
-  
  
“I got perfect scores, Mother.” The blond boy seemed to be around 8 now, and handed over a piece of parchment to Julia. She was pregnant, and the sound of a child laughing could be heard somewhere down the hallway.  
  
She looked down at the paper, before sliding it back. “Do you want to be congratulated on what’s expected from you? You’ll never really reach your full potential if I’m constantly coddling your every move.”  
  
The boy didn’t look surprised, but his eyebrows dropped slightly. Disappointed, and there was a hint of anger. “When have you ever?” He asked softly, tone cold.   
  
Julia’s eyes narrowed. “I raised you, I’ve protected you, I’ve trained you.”  
  
A little boy ran into the room holding a toy train, Julia smiled at him. The blond boy sat backwards in his chair, looking at the two. He looked out of place in his own home.  
  
“You don’t want to end up like Ryan, do you?” Julia asked, not looking up, but it was obviously directed at the eldest child.  
  
“No,” the boy responded tersely. “I won’t.”  
  
He looked out of a window, onto New Rome. “I’ll become Praetor.”  
  
-

Screaming, that was the first thing Octavian heard as the vision changed once again. He could see stars, but smoke was beginning to cloud the sky and block the moon from view.   
  
Screaming. Octavian looked away from the sky and found a boy. The building around them was burning down. The boy was frantically trying to open a door, pounding on it, shoving, trying to break through. It would never budge.  
  
The boy was burning, his skin was glowing, his eyes were bright. The screams turned into heavy sobs, and the pounding of fists turned into slow methodical tapping.   
  
“ _Please_ ,” the boy pleaded to no one. No one came. The world burned down around him, and Leo Valdez sat in the middle of it, completely alone.   
  
-  
  
Leo watched as a boy, likely no older than 11, stood panting in the middle of the forest. A bloodied figure lay at his feet, a full-grown man clutching his chest trying to stanch the bloodflow.   
  
The boy was splattered in dirt, grime, and red. He held a Roman sword, which was dripping down onto the forest floor of moss and fir needles.   
  
The man coughed, spluttering, looking up at the boy. The boy met his eyes, and before words could be spoken, brought the blade down again in one fell blow. A head was separated from the rest of the body.  
  
The boy was shaking, but didn’t budge from his spot. He was waiting. Soon, a giant wolf walked forward through the trees and underbrush.  
  
“You’ve done well, my son.” It had been the first time he’d heard such words. “You’ve done well, Octavian.”  
  
-  
  
  
  
They woke up at the same time, unaware of the other.   
  
Leo couldn’t fall back asleep, thinking about the woman he assumed to be Octavian’s mother, and the boy forced to kill to find any acceptance.  
  
Octavian couldn’t fall back to sleep, as he saw a child screaming whenever he closed his eyes, a child alone desperately to save someone already gone.    
  
They didn’t tell each other about their dreams.  
  
Leo began to hum a familiar song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say they play doctor, because I actually meant Octavian decapitates a man. 
> 
> (Rick kind of goes back and forth as to if Octavian is a legacy of Apollo, or son of Apollo. I'm sticking with son, but honestly it's not like any of this is hugely canon. So. Whatever)
> 
> I hope folks enjoyed some liberties I took here. It's kind of hard to really reason out what is admittedly kind of cartoonishly bad behavior in Octavian, and I really didn't want to go purely down the "Draco Malfoy Wants To Appease His Dad' route - so, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here but, introducing Julia *insert last name*. Her brother, Ryan, was a good guy, but ultimately never did much with his life. Julia, the older sibling watched out for him, helped him, but it didn't help. Ryan ended up falling into trap after trap, and eventually it cost his life. Julia, deep down, doesn't want to see the same happen to Octavian, her firstborn - but her methods are removed and detached. She's not emotionally attached to her child, but giving birth to a child of Apollo was a status symbol in New Rome. Octavian grows up being essentially being taught that kindness, trust, love, are all weakness. Not always explicitly, but subconscious reinforcement through her actions. It doesn't help Apollo does nothing to contradict those thoughts. 
> 
> I'm not a big fan of this chapter, bit cheap, but they're so emotionally constipated, a God stepped in and used dream laxative on them.


	5. Walter & Matthau

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavian has a vision, but it isn't what he wants to see.
> 
> And, the inevitable happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kind of a mess. I've been fighting with myself in regards of pacing. and development of characters. I'm not sure how I feel about it right now, maybe I'll go back and edit it later, but for now. Here it is. (partly I'm not sure if I'll have power this entire week, i'm currently snowed in, so I wanted to update something)
> 
> So, here we go, Octavian does some soul searching, kind of.

  
Octavian needed to mull over his dreams, what they meant and why they were shown to him. What did it mean for Octavian specifically?  
He’d become more withdrawn into his head while considering all the possibilities. Was it due to the Cure? A Curse? The will of the Gods? Or something else entirely.  
The last number of days, since the incident with Leo’s tooth, Octavian had felt…uneasy about something. Something he didn’t want to admit, because it made him feel weak. In this life, Octavian couldn’t afford to be weak.  
  
That night, Octavian bore witness to his own fatal flaw. It was an unassuming night for the two (and dragon) on another sandbar. Octavian fell asleep quickly enough, pulling his less than pristine jacket over his body. It wasn’t particularly cold here, with a fire going, but the salt air got cold on the breeze. It was easy, though, to slip into slumber.  
  
Octavian opened his eyes to Rome. _New_ Rome, as Octavian envisioned it could be.  
  
Sprawling, a massive population that spread far beyond what it currently knew next to the Little Tiber.  It went on for ages, past the hillsides. White pathways, white buildings and columns gleamed in the bright light of day. Gardens grew between forums, halls, and homes. The bright greens contrasted with the red terracotta rooves on the buildings around them. He could hear the soft sounds of water trickling from fountains around corners. Statues to the Gods, to the Roman Empire, were all around.  
There were no people, Octavian realized after a moment of walking down what appeared to be the main road into the heart of the city. No demigods, no legacies, no faun, no ghosts. Not even the sound of birds.  
  
Octavian took another step and stumbled, something was in his way. Looking down, he was met with a glassy eyed expression. A body, of a Roman. Octavian remembered this one, a young man in the same cohort as Octavian when he had first joined. The young man wasn’t fit for his position, Octavian had thought at the time. He stepped over the body, it was of no concern. There was another. And another. The entire road was paved with the laid-out bodies of Roman citizens. Octavian gave it no pause, until one body caught his eye, a blonde man. Jason Grace, eyes looking at the sky but seeing nothing anymore. Octavian took a moment to take it in. Some part of him was pleased, the traitor was dead. With Jason out of the way, there was nothing standing between him and…Octavian looked backwards at the line of bodies in the road. Octavian remembered he had already effectively seized power from Reyna. Jason was no longer of much concern, was he? What had happened after that?  
Reyna was the next body, though her eyes were closed. Peaceful. Unlike the others. How typical.  
  
'What next', Octavian asked the dream around him. 'Will you show me Leo’s corpse, or maybe the Greek’s now?'  
  
The next was Octavian’s own body.  
  
Octavian stared down at it for a moment, before looking up at the splendor of the Rome around him. An empty city. The moment was torn from him, as he heard noises coming from one of the gates leading to a villa. People, voices.  
Octavian moved off his path, and looked through an iron gate, but what he saw wasn’t New Rome any longer, it was Camp Half Blood. More accurately, it was Camp Half Blood at war.  
  
Octavian remembered this, vaguely. Reloading the onager, knowing it was the only weapon they had capable of reaching Gaia. Octavian watched himself, and it hadn’t felt right then either.  
Nico di Angelo and another showed up, begging him. Pleading with him, it was dangerous they said. Octavian knew that. Didn't he?  
Octavian was a tactician, he had been _so_ sure. So certain. That, was normal, but there was something else there in the background. Like something else was pushing him forward, putting blinders on his vision.  
Michael Kahale appeared, and waited. Octavian frowned, watching his past-self. He had called Kahale, ‘ _Michael_ ’ and ‘a good _friend_ ’. That was unlike Octavian. Kahale had his uses, and proved to be very capable, but Octavian didn't have _friends_.   
  
Octavian watched, as three people witnessed his death and did nothing. He backed away from the scene and looked back towards his ideal Rome. It was still empty and quiet.  
  
Octavian opened his eyes to meet Leo’s and flinched backwards. Leo looked mildly concerned, which was unusual.  
“You looked like you were having a nightmare,” Leo backed away, holding up his hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”  
  
“A...nightmare?” Octavian repeated, licking his lips, his mouth felt dry.  Leo nodded, and handed him a cup of steaming something. Smelled like some type of cider.  
  
“Yeah, you were tense, and making this really upset constipated face. And then, well…you just looked. I don’t know. Hard to explain, but you woke up before I could wake you up.” Leo paused, looking him over. “Are you…good?”  
  
Octavian had no idea.  
He became more withdrawn following that.  
  
Leo, from then on seemed to be on a task of mercy, or annoyance, it was hard to tell with him. Humming and singing didn’t get much of a reaction from Octavian. Noisy repairs didn’t seem to phase him; in fact, Octavian would actually often watch Leo work on Festus now, or fix a weapon of some kind. Leo knew his fire powers were odd to a lot of the demigod world, but Octavian seemed more interested in the blacksmith side of things which Leo thought must have been more mundane.  
  
“Seriously, are you okay? Do you want to talk about your nightmare?” Leo asked after a day or two of the odd treatment, mild lisp still present. Octavian looked to be seriously considering the questions.  
  
“…I’m fine.”  
 Leo looked unconvinced, but didn’t press it more.  
  
“Okay, well, you want to see my new anti-monster invention?” Leo grinned, a look slightly marred by missing a tooth. Octavian had the sense to look vaguely concerned before _it_ started playing.  
  
“You like it?!” Leo shouted over the cacophony. “It took a while to program it in!”  
  
“What on earth?!” Octavian screamed, looking around frantically, as though there was an off switch somewhere. “What did you do?!”  
  
“This, my frenemy, is a super mash-up of some of the most hated music of the last 30 years! I’m playing more than one over the top of one another for the ultimate horrible music creation!”  
  
“Why, gods, why?!”  
  
“I have a theory that the noise will drive them away!” Leo yelled, eventually waving a hand, and Festus shut his mouth and the music stopped. “I’ve, however, suddenly realized that I didn’t factor in us also having ears.”  
  
Octavian threw his arms in the air and walked away. Leo nodded at Festus, who resumed the screeching. Leo slipped on headphones, “still worth testing though, right?”  
  
Leo grew concerned when Octavian hadn’t return by sun up. A gnawing nasty pressure grew in his stomach. When had he become _worried_ about Octavian of all people?  
  
It didn’t take long to find him, on the exact opposite side of the island staring out at the sunrise. Octavian said nothing, simply stood up and returned with Leo. Putting up no fight, no snark, no nothing, was unlike Octavian.   
  
“This…soulmate business, do you think that it ended when I died?” Octavian asked later that night, which surprised Leo. Octavian often mentioned Leo ‘getting him killed’ but Leo hadn’t really stopped to think about the reality of the fact that Octavian had _died._ He wouldn't have seen it coming like Leo had,and hadn't not known what was going to happen to him.  
  
“I…don’t think so,” Leo said slowly, putting down his hammer from where he was repairing a dagger. “You didn’t get that message until after, so maybe you…didn’t have a soulmate until after you died.”  
Leo didn't like thinking about it, knowing he was actually referring to himself.  
  
“Then, it should be reversible.”  
  
“You want to _reverse_ having a _soulmate_?”  
  
Octavian stabbed at a piece of fish. “You struggle, and you crawl, only to sacrifice yourself for someone else.” Leo had no idea what Octavian was on about but had to imagine it had something to do with that nightmare.  
“We had no choice.”  
  
“What are you talking about, Octavian?” Leo asked quietly. “What choice?”  
  
Octavian crossed his legs, and rested his head on a hand, looking away. He looked younger somehow, staring out over the water.  
“Fate. It doesn’t matter anymore.”  
  
  
Nearly a two more weeks had passed and there wasn’t much to show for it. Octavian had stopped nattering at him, stopped picking fights, and seemed far less concerned about returning than he once had. Leo had no idea what was happening inside the mind of the augur, and all attempts to find out were met with ether silence or some vague bitter statement that Leo couldn’t begin to decipher.  


“Are you really that upset about having a soulmate?” Leo tried asking, to which Octavian rolled his eyes.  
  
“Are you mad at me?” Leo asked, and Octavian gave him an unreadable look.  
  
“Always,” Octavian had said, but it felt halfhearted.  
  
“Do you miss your camp?” Octavian hesitated.  
  
“…Yes, I miss my home.”  
  
  
They flew again, longer this time with no monsters in sight. Leo cheered upon seeing a much larger island. It had some woods, green grass, and looked like there was wildlife.  
“Are we out of it, you think?” Leo wondered, looking over Festus’ side to get a better look.  
  
Octavian bothered to look mildly interested, and commented, “I see sheep. It might have been inhabited at one point, if it isn’t currently.”  
  
“ _See_ ,” Leo tapped Octavian in the chest with a pointy elbow. “I told you I’d get you back. Let’s land and see where we are.”  
  
Octavian didn’t look so convinced, but said nothing. They touched down, and Leo had Festus fly off to check out the area better from the air.  
  
“Looks like there’s nobody here,” Leo climbed up a small hill, holding up a pair of binoculars. “I don’t see any sign of buildings or anything.”  
  
Octavian stood on the beach and made to follow Leo until he noticed something. Pieces of scrapped ship, an what was possibly a bit of airplane wing.  
“Valdez,” Octavian started, feeling the hair begin to stand up on the back of his neck. “I don’t think we should be here.”  
  
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Leo said sounding very much unlike Leo, voice high and tight. He was looking in a direction that Octavian couldn’t see from down below. Octavian got to him as soon as possible and was met with the realization they had not yet left the Sea of Monsters.  
  
“He’s a cyclops,” Leo whispered to Octavian as they stared down a hulking figure lumbering towards them. “Son of Poseidon. They’re fireproof. I can’t do anything to it.”  
  
“I don’t think it can see,” Octavian responded just as quietly. “It’s not looking at us. If we just stay quiet, we may be able to-”  
  
“Who are you?” the cyclops roared, teeth yellowed and mangled. “I smell demigods.”  
  
“Well, that won’t work then,” Octavian exhaled, before a step forward and switching to his orator voice. “My name is Octavian, Centurion of Rome. I humbly ask to stay upon your land before we leave. We will take nothing, touch nothing. For your kindness, we can repay your generosity tenfold!”  
  
Leo covered his mouth, moving from fear to amusement quite quickly at the pomp and circumstance.  
  
“…Do you know Nobody?” The cyclops asked after a minute, and Octavian spit on the ground. Leo jumped away, curling his lip up in disgust and confusion. Octavian held up a hand, shooting him a ‘shut up now or we die,’ look.  
  
“Odysseus? A liar! A coward! A cad and a tyrant, sir! That, yes, I know of him.” The cyclops grinned, the smell coming from its maw was nearly audible. It asked again, but this time, if they knew one Percy Jackson.

“I know him, yes. In fact, I can deliver him to you. I wish him dead more than most,” Octavian nodded. “He is no friend. ”  
  
“He hurt my ex-girlfriend!” Leo piped up, ignoring Octavian’s flailing to get him to stop. “…Actually, so did Odysseus.” Leo muttered to himself for a second, but it was enough to have stolen the cyclops attention.  
  
“Who are _you_?”  
  
“Leo Valdez, mister sir man. Son of Hephaestus, forges and hammers and all that. You guys like that stuff too, huh?”  
  
The cyclops grew quiet, and Octavian felt his blood turn cold. “I see.”  
  
“He is my prisoner,” Octavian cut in quickly. “I am to deliver him to the… Earth Mother.”  
  
Leo was confused now, looking at Octavian for an explanation as to how the conversation had switched to Gaia. Octavian had become aware of something Leo had not.  
  
“You need not,” the cyclops spoke, “I will simply eat him.”  
  
“Oh, okay. Who is this guy?” Leo whispered to Octavian who gave him the same look he usually did when he was about to tell Leo to read more.  
  
“Polyphemus,” Octavian muttered. “This obviously isn’t working.”  
  
Octavian pulled out a throwing knife and directed it exactly into the center of the cyclops eyeball. The creature screamed in pain, holding his hands up to his face.  
“You’re like the rest, I’ll kill you all! I'll _devour_ you!”  
  
Octavian looked more like himself for a minute, offended at being compared in any way to Percy Jackson, and raised another knife.  
“This is bad, Valdez.” Octavian hissed. “We’re out matched here, I didn’t bring enough weapons, and you throwing whatever you pull from that belt isn’t going to do much against a cyclops. If Festus doesn’t get back soon…well, I don’t suppose you have another dose of that Cure?”  
  
Leo whistled, and Polyphemus began to charge. Octavian grabbed Leo by the shoulder to pull him out of the way, but he didn’t need to do anything.  “You keep forgetting something, _Tavy',_  Leo grinned, and Octavian blanched at the nickname. "Festus is a _dragon_."  
  
“Firebreathing isn’t going to do-“  
The dragon soared into view with a roar, dove, and ripped the head off the cyclops before he had the chance to reach them.  
  
Octavian opened his mouth, and shut it. Right, a metal dragon.  
  
“Our legends would be so much better with more dragons,” Leo said happily, jogging over to meet Festus who dropped the giants head at Leo’s feet like an overgrown dog. It was oddly endearing, though Octavian would never admit it.  
  
“….I may agree with you in this _very_ specific moment.”  
  
  
  
“You know, this is where Percy, Annabeth, and Grover went to save Jason’s sister Thalia. Well, I don't think they knew that at the time.” Leo remarked that night, as they sat in the cave of the monster they defeated. “She was turned into a... tree or something, it was all very Greek. They had to get the golden fleece, I think. Something about Grover almost banging a monster. Not sure, I wasn’t there. I know they mentioned something about traveling through the Bermuda triangle, but I had no idea that’s what the sea of monsters referred to. Honestly, didn’t listen that closely.”

Octavian watched Leo, who looked more pleased than he did before.  
Octavian hadn’t been the only one who had become more withdrawn as time went on. The longer they spent away, each time they were pushed back, Leo grew increasingly downtrodden. He feigned his mood though more than Octavian, though the fact he did added to the issues Octavian was currently dealing with in his head.  
  
“You’re happy… being here?”  
  
Leo shrugged a shoulder, “I feel like I’m closer than we were before. Retracing their footsteps, however long ago. Like, they did it at...12? We can too. You’re not? I thought you’d be excited to be so close to home.”  
  
Octavian looked away, and Leo sighed. “You’re really not going to tell me what’s wrong? What shook you so badly that you’d…stop being _you_?”

“Being me is the reason we’re here in the first place,” Octavian admitted, and Leo froze, and spluttered cocoa all over his shirt.  
  
“What did you just say?!” Leo gasped, and Octavian shot him a glare. “No, I’m sorry. Did you just admit to being at _fault_ for something?”  
  
Octavian said nothing, continuing to glare. Leo held up his hands in defeat, “okay, jeez.”  
  
“Octavian, you know…this…isn’t actually your fault?” Leo asked after a second. “This…was all just. _Fate_. Prophecy. I’m…sorry you got pulled into it. If I hadn’t gotten possessed and fired on Rome…you might be back home right now. This is Gaia, this is Fate, this is…it’s not your fault, okay?”  
  
“It was inevitable,” Octavian sounded certain, but the emotion was gone from it. “As soon as Percy Jackson appeared, war was inevitable.”  
  
Leo shook his head, breathing out of his nose sharply. “I don’t get it, why? Why would that be inevitable?”  
  
Octavian looked at him very plainly, “because I would have found a way to ensure it.”  
  
Leo felt a shiver go down his spine, with memory that their back and forth was only _cute_ because Octavian was incapable of actually killing him. It had been so long, that the threat had worn off.   
“That’s what you want? War?” Octavian laughed, shaking his head.  
  
“No, I don’t _want_ war. I wanted power, and glory for Rome. Total domination for the Empire.” Leo opened his mouth to argue, but something Octavian had said caught in his head.  
  
“… _Wanted_? Do you not want that anymore, Octavian? Is that why…” Octavian stared at the other side of the cave, not looking at Leo.  
  
“...We were pushed towards death, by forces we can’t control. We had no choice.” Leo remembered Octavian using those words before, implying a lack of choice in the matter. “I must wonder now if they wanted us to survive? Were we not simply left to die?”  
  
Leo scooched closer, feeling as though Octavian didn’t simply mean just Fate this time. “…Who let you die?”  
  
“The Gods, _Kahale_ , di Angelo, others. Whomever, whatever.” Octavian looked more bitter now, eyes narrowed, as though he saw something Leo could not.  
“It’s funny, realizing everything I worked towards was rendered completely _pointless_ in that moment. A moment where my actions seemed alien to myself. There was something keeping me on that path, on that road, feeding the things I wanted to the degree that I…” Octavian’s words drifted off slowly, his eyebrows furrowed.  
  
“You’ve got a second chance though, how many people get to say that?” Leo suggested tentatively after a few moments. “After everything, if you were destined to die then and there, for whatever reason…you got to come back. If you were serving a purpose, that’s…done. You’re free. You’re off the wheel. I mean, sure, you’re stuck with me right now, but…I’ll get you back, I promise.”  
  
Octavian looked almost human for a second, almost sad, before laughingly hollowly.  
“You don’t understand...The weight of what I did. If I return, I’ll likely be banished. Even if I'm not...Like I said, this is pointless. What do I have now? Nothing... just a history lined with enemies, bodies, and an empty ideal.”  
  
“Well, _okay_ , if you look at it like that…” Leo hummed, thinking it over. “You can come stay with me then. I’m really good at starting over. It’s kind of my thing. Again and again. Pretty much all I do.”  
  
Octavian froze, and turned to stare at his companion with doubtful eyes. “…With you? …After everything?”  
  
“Yeah, I mean. I have a _big_ bunker. You can be a major asshole, but we haven’t killed each other yet. So. Sure.” Leo heated up his drink again with a burst of flames from his hand. He didn’t want to admit to his own fears, of returning and being alone again. Additionally, Leo didn’t understand when he realized he’d miss Octavian’s company, but he would.   
  
“ _Not_ for lack of trying on my part,” Octavian pointed out, to which Leo turned and grinned at him instead.  
  
“So what? Who cares! I’m not going to just…let you be _abandoned_ by your own family.” Octavian said nothing, remembering the vision of Leo young and alone.  
He didn’t argue. He knew the fact was that he’d never be welcomed at Camp Half Blood; that everything he’d worked towards was now out of reach. But, Leo looked like he'd find a way.   
  
 “So…Are we going to talk about you protecting me earlier, from Polywhatsit? Or, maybe why were you able to pull out my tooth?” Leo finally asked what he had been wanting to for quite some time.  
  
“Does it matter?” Octavian sighed.  
  
“Well, if we have to become roomies, I’m kind of hoping you won’t slit my throat in the middle of the night?” Octavian rolled his eyes, and Leo cracked a smile.  
  
Octavian said nothing, until. “It’s because… I didn’t want you to.”

“Didn’t want me to what?” Leo leaned forward on his knees, confused.  
  
Octavian looked away. “Hurt.”

It was the weakness Octavian had felt, all leading up to that nightmare.  
  
It had clicked suddenly for Octavian back in that moment. He had been watching Leo be in pain, had been for days. When Leo had come to him, it had gotten to a breaking point. Octavian had been watching, unable to act, unable to even know what to do. He didn’t know if he even wanted Leo’s pain to end until that very moment.  
 There, with tears on Leo’s face, Octavian had hurt Leo to save him from being in pain any longer. He did it to help him, not to hurt.  
It didn’t bring Octavian any joy, nor any satisfaction, apart from seeing that it had worked. Leo was down a tooth, face bloodied and dripping, but everything had shifted.  
  
Octavian found that he cared, and it scared him.  
  
His entire life, the only thing that mattered to him was New Rome and Camp Jupiter. Praetors shifted and left, people died all the time. Betrayal was inevitable, because that’s just how things were. Octavian felt vindicated in those beliefs time and time again. Everyone had their price, skeletons in their closet. Octavian didn’t care about them, he just used them for the betterment of the camp. Rome was what mattered – the individual was not.  
Until one individual, the least likely person, mattered. Octavian didn’t know how to adapt to that.  
  
Leo was _new_. Leo looked for him, talked to him, involved him. Not because he was Roman, son of Apollo. Not because of he was a centurion, not because he was an augur, not because of blackmail, or power.  
Leo didn’t _like_ him, didn’t _fear_ him, but still…Leo had protected him.  
  
In that moment, when he pulled his knife up to Leo’s throat, and the boy stared up at him, Octavian couldn’t do it. He hadn’t even tried.  
  
There was no cosmic force forcing his hand away, this time it was just Octavian.  
  
“You…hurt me to help me, you wanted to save me? That’s why?” Leo asked slowly, working out the reasoning in his own head. “That’s progress. You know, in your own wa-“

Octavian grabbed Leo’s chin, leaned down ever so much, and kissed him. The _Thing_ happened again, that bolt of electricity. Like it felt _right_ , when he tried to tell himself it was very wrong.  
  
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Octavian pulled back just slightly, far too close to Leo’s ear. He didn’t have to explain what he meant. They were soulmates.  
  
Leo grabbed his head and pulled Octavian back for another. Festus roared somewhere nearby, and the two broke apart for a moment. Once they stopped, Octavian looked mildly amused, but happy (for Octavian) and didn’t say anything horrifically insulting. Still, Leo figured it was his way of saying he didn’t think much of Leo’s kissing prowess.  
Their lips were dry after so long traveling, their hair was dirty and sandy, Leo had a zit on his chin. Still, leaning forward again, they held each other’s eyes like they were the only people in the world. Their lips just barely met, it was soft and uncertain. Leo moved a hand to Octavian’s neck, thumb brushing against his jawline. Octavian ran a hand down Leo’s arm until Octavian had Leo’s hand in his. Leo's hands were softer than you'd expect from his work, but both young men had callouses and cuts and hang nails from their travels. Still, Octavian thought, Leo's hand felt...nice.   
  
Leo tilted his head some, moving to deepen the kiss; he wasn't sure how but willing to try. Octavian pulled back, however, giving a soft click of the tongue.  
  
“You’re sixteen,” Octavian said in a chiding tone, but his eyes were softer, clearer.  The sharpness and anger had abated for now.  
  
“You’re the one kissing me,” Leo was trying not to smile. “Are 16-year old’s not allowed to stick their tongues down someone’s throat?”  
  
Octavian leaned forward until their forehead were touching. “Ah, what a way with words.”  
  
“Again, I say: You’re the one kissing me.”  
  
“Yes,” Octavian said in a whisper, as he placed another chaste kiss on Leo’s mouth, “I suppose I am.”  
  
“You’ve known for a while, haven’t you? That I was your soulmate?” Leo asked, reaching up with his free hand to push limp blond hair out of Octavian’s face. It wasn't a bad face, it was even handsome, when he wasn't being terrible.   
  
“I…suspected. I found myself drawn to you, earlier than I’d like to admit.”

Leo laughed, and shook his head. “You _are_ odd.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Octavian admitted. “But, you’re the one kissing me.”

  
  
  
The following morning, Octavian told Leo it would be unwise to continue their relationship once they had returned to Camp Half Blood.

Leo said nothing in return, just clenched his jaw and kept flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Octavian is just, the most annoying character to write. He's so cartoonishly evil in parts of the books that it's...inconsistent. We're supposed to believe he's cunning and intelligent, able to convince Reyna to do things, able to get followers and support. We're supposed to see some connection to the historical Octavian (Augustus), who literally took down Cleopatra. And then, at the end, Rick kills him Team Rocket style. It's just, Rick, why. No family is mentioned, and again, he isn't even given a last name. Lityerses gets more character development. 
> 
> So, abusing the fact he's related to Apollo, after the last chapter, I wanted (my) Octavian to be forced into reassessing his goals. The Rome he wanted before might not be attainable, but that doesn't mean Octavian will stop being Octavian. (And, if you've read Odd Parents, the oneshot I have set in the far flung future of this fic... it should be pretty clear Octavian doesn't stop caring about his city.
> 
> Next chapter brings them back home, but that's not the end of the story. These lads are dumb, and smooching ain't gunna fix all problems.
> 
> Thanks for reading folks!


	6. Jack & Lemmon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They boys are back, and still emotionally constipated.  
> Except, for once, Octavian kind of has a reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back in Camp today  
> A chubby Lester complains  
> His face in the grass

  
  


Leo understood it wasn’t ideal for either of them.   
It wasn’t like any of this had been _easy_. Their entire relationship up until this point had been chaos, far earlier than just their messy rise from the dead. Their very first moment of alone time, way back in New Rome, had been marked by Leo literally getting possessed and trying to kill everyone – including Octavian. Leo had a vague memory of turning and throwing flames at a startled blond centurion.   
Leo understood why Octavian would have second thoughts, why he would have doubts.  
But Leo was _so_ afraid of being alone. Leo hated to admit it, hated that a part of him would be content with their relationship as it was now, staying together even if they were never completely happy. Hidden thoughts, intentions, feelings; whatever, Leo just didn’t want to lose someone else. It was that part of him that drove him to try and ‘save’ Echo, to ‘save’ Calypso – his own insecurity. To die in place of his friends, because he couldn’t face being without them.   
‘ _Come, stay with me_ ’ Leo had essentially said to Octavian, and in his own selfishness he knew it was for his own benefit.   
  
That wasn’t to say things hadn’t improved, they weren’t miserable together. It wasn’t like a broken marriage. Octavian had improved over time, Leo had even started to enjoy his company (usually.) Leo had seen aspects of the man’s past, his weaknesses, his fears. But, for all his bravado, Leo still had a hard time picturing Octavian ever _loving_ him. The way Leo saw it, even in the face of the possibility of their souls being tied, Leo still wasn’t wanted permanently. It hurt.   
Granted, it was hard for him to picture anyone loving him.  
  
Octavian moved closer behind Leo as they flew, putting his hands around Leo’s waist this time; Octavian’s eyes were more alert, but overall he was looking far more content. Of course, _he_ was fine with it, their current situation, it would all absolve eventually. That must have been how Octavian saw it. A momentary form of stress relief.   
Leo imagined Octavian was still considering ways as to how to avoid banishment, how to regain his post and his followers. The fact Octavian didn’t want to continue their relationship was proof of that, in Leo’s mind.  
 Leo couldn’t further Octavian’s career. Leo was Greek. Leo was a man. Maybe Octavian was completely straight too. Maybe Leo simply wasn’t attractive enough.  
  
 They had their sweet moment, one Leo wouldn’t and couldn’t forget. But Leo could see the writing on the wall. Octavian had returned more to being… _Octavian_. Not exactly like he had been before that nightmare, and thankfully not like he had been when they first met; but he was talking more, more engaged in fights. Octavian was _motivated_ again. At first, Leo was pleased, thinking maybe some how he’d managed to help Octavian. That maybe Octavian _wanted_ to be his soulmate. Wanted _Leo_.   
But now, he doubted it. Something had shifted since their first kiss. Leo was tempted to say he had the feeling Octavian was hiding something from him, but that would be redundant. Leo knew Octavian was likely always hiding something.  
  
Leo didn’t know how to ask Octavian how he really felt about Leo and didn’t know if he wanted to know the answer.  
  
  
Octavian himself, had stumbled upon a series of his own realizations, after talking with Leo. It was not something he could discuss, but if his suspicions were correct, it made the need to return to New Rome greater than it had been before. If not New Rome, Octavian bit down disgust, he needed to speak with a very specific Greek that he did _not_ want to.    
Octavian returned to being mildly annoyed by their lack of progress; though, overall, he had become far more amenable with their new-found _outlet_. Ignorant to the issues swirling silently inside Leo’s mind; they still kissed, touched, laid together. Sex was quite clearly off the table, and as Octavian as he was concerned, they would likely never reach it unless they were stuck in this limbo for years. Which wouldn’t be ideal for either Camp’s livelihood.  
  
But they couldn’t go faster than they were, so for the time being, waking up with a human heat lamp next to him wasn’t the worst thing to have ever happened. It was …nice, even if Octavian knew their relationship couldn’t continue long term, not with what was bound to come.  
 Additionally, Octavian knew Leo clearly cared deeply for his friends, for his camp. Dating Octavian would tear Leo from both sides. They’d be _so_ sympathetic towards Leo, having to be “ _stuck”_ with Octavian as a soulmate. Grace, Levesque, Zhang, and Jackson would only feed into that. Grace was Leo’s best friend and yet had been one of Octavian’s biggest foes up until quite recently. They went from rivals to …well, Octavian had a good idea as to why their rivalry became something more destructive.   
Octavian was doing Leo a kindness. Plus, it was better if Leo was away from anything Roman for a while.  
  
Still, though…He’d enjoy their time together while it lasted. Laying together on a beach, Leo against him. It was odd to say, that even though Leo was barely over 5 foot tall, and willowy at best; Octavian felt safer and more content than he had in…his entire life, possibly. What a sad thought, Octavian frowned at the stars above. Octavian had spent his entire life training, entered the military when he was 11, and yet this was the only time he _didn’t_ feel the need to constantly check his back. It wasn’t as though Leo posed no threat, even if Leo couldn’t injure him, it was obvious that behind a chaotic exterior, Leo was brilliant. Maybe a bit of a mad scientist, but Octavian found that he rather enjoyed that aspect of his personality.   
  
There were still some other benefits to their relationship, Octavian wasn’t innocent.  A smiled curled over his lips.   
How _would_ Jason Grace react when the truth came out? He’d like to see that.   
  
Leo’s eyes cracked open, and met his own, and smiled sleepily.   
  
Well,   
They didn’t need to return _too_ quickly.  
  
A few more weeks passed, and something began to pull at Octavian yet again. He found himself changing his mind yet again.  
_Leo._    
Leo was increasingly having trouble hiding his mood, and his depression grew. Internally, it has hard for him to accept the fact that he didn’t want their voyage to end, because it meant losing Octavian - but at the same time, the frustration over not having reached his only known home in a decade hurt.   
He’d retreat to Octavian, or his dragon, or to his creations; but it was obvious something was beginning to heavily weigh on his mind.   
  
Octavian didn’t know how to address the issue any better than Leo did, besides simply pulling him into an embrace from time to time, kissing when he felt like Leo needed to be distracted. But, reassuring him? Octavian had no idea how to help.  A skilled orator, certainly, when it came to political issues; not emotional ones.  
  
Leo was in pain again. There was no tooth to remove, no wounds to be healed.   
  
“We’re nearly to the mainland, our progress has been far more significant in the last few days. It seems you’ve successfully nearly steered us out of the Sea of Monsters.” Octavian decided he’d try complimenting Leo’s abilities, but it wasn’t what he needed. Earlier, Leo had mentioned something about a signal, but Octavian didn’t understand a lot of the tech-talk Leo mentioned. Either way, something had happened.  
  
“High praise. You that happy to get rid of me?” Leo asked, digging into the dirt with a hand, and Octavian stared in confusion.  
  
“…What?”  
  
“Nothing, it doesn’t matter.” Leo said, voice monotone and tired. “I’ve got _no choice_ in the matter, do I?”  
  
Octavian paused, remembering his own comments weeks earlier, about fate, about their lack of choices in life.   
  
“That’s not- I’m not _happy_ to-“  
  
Leo rolled his eyes, and said he wanted to be alone for a while. Octavian was more confused than ever. Was Leo that upset about them having to part ways? Octavian knew Leo seemed more invested in the soulmate issue, far earlier than Octavian had been, but he had no idea that Leo would _want_ to stay together. It wasn’t as though Leo was walking around declaring his love for Octavian, he had been the one to hide the nature of their bond in the first place. As far as Octavian was aware, Leo likely still loved the sea nymph Calypso.   
  
Later, after deciding to try and find Leo, Octavian found several trees and rocks singed, and a spot of sand remarkably turned glassy. Leo was powerful, _insanely_ powerful. Probably more so than Leo himself realized. Octavian thought back on his own murky memories, of their meal between the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks that seemed to be the most in charge or in power were _Athena_ ’s daughter Chase, Jackson, or even Jason Grace…Leo didn’t seem to have even expected to have an opinion in political matters. He didn’t talk much or pay much attention. Granted the entire structure of power in the Greek demigod camp confounded Octavian, so he hadn’t thought much on it at the time. But now, Octavian felt nearly insulted on Leo’s behalf.   
That prophecy, Octavian thought, from the harpy. Leo was just as strong as Jason Grace, he had to be. The world fell, and it was to _fire_.  
Briefly, Octavian remembered his desire to have Nico di Angelo become his ally. Thinking of Leo in the same manner seemed wrong. He was no political piece. Leo was _different,_ he was always different to Octavian.  


  
That night, Leo jerked awake from what seemed to be a nightmare, and it was Octavian turn to clumsily try and comfort him.   
“Was it a vision?” Octavian asked, words slightly slurring from being woken so suddenly. Leo’s face changed from panicked to fondness, to tiredness.  
  
Shaking his head, Leo laid back down quietly. “No, just a memory.”  
  
Octavian shifted, and pulled his jacket over the both of them. “You’re certain?”  
  
“Unless for some reason my foster mom Teresa is somehow involved with Gaia, probably just a memory. Admittedly, she was also a bitch…so, you know, maybe?” Leo snorted, and leaned in closer to Octavian. “You know… I’m sorry. For before. I never apologized.”  
Octavian paused, and looked down at him questioningly.   
“I gave you shit about your mom, because I was…convinced you were just this complete _monster_. Whatever issue you had with her, I thought they had to be _your_ fault. But, I should know better than anyone that there are some… really shitty parents out there.”  
  
Octavian didn’t entirely know what to say, but muttered something close to a thank you. His face felt slightly hot.  
  
“My aunt, you know, thought I was the devil…or possessed. Something like that. Didn’t want me. I guess in retrospect, who’d want a kid that’d accidentally burn things when they were upset.” Leo wasn’t looking at Octavian, he was looking into the bonfire that was dwindling a few feet away.  
  
“Not so much an issue for demigod and legacy parents,” Octavian pointed out. Leo looked at him with a strange smile.  
  
“Cute you think that. Wasn’t how my life at camp went at first. I’m an _omen_ , apparently. I don’t know what it’s like for Romans, or kids of Vulcan, but fire using kids of Hephaestus. They all thought it was an omen.”  
  
“You are, partly at least,” Octavian agreed after a moment of thinking on it. “Behind you followed fire, war, and death.” Leo’s breath hitched, and he began to sit back up, hurt obvious on his face. “However, I think it’s very likely you also _stopped_ significantly more people from dying. As much as it may pain my pride as a Roman, you defeated Gaia.”   
Leo just stared at him, until his ears caught fire. Octavian cleared his throat, glancing away. “For the record, I think I may be a bad omen myself.”  
  
“How so?” Leo asked, more curious this time.   
  
“My name, my family…” Octavian readjusted to let Leo curl up against his shoulder easier. Leo frowned.  
  
“What does the name Octavian have to do with anything? I’m going to level with you here, I totally tuned out last time you mentioned him. Like, the first two days we were traveling, I heard like every 7 th sentence you said.”  
  
Octavian licked his own chapped lips, slowly thinking over how much he wanted to giveaway. Leo’d likely want to join him if he said too much.  
 “Well, there were rumors Augustus, or Octavian, was murdered…however, it’s more about what he started…Hard to explain since you’re not Roman, or educated in Roman history. I could explain, but I’d need to start at the beginning of the Roman empire to fully let you grasp the socio-politic-”  
Leo rolled his eyes and flopped back again. “Nerd. Whatever, I’ll ask Jason or Hazel then.”  
  
“Do… you want them to know?” Octavian asked Leo, changing the subject. Leo looked confused for a second, but caught up quickly enough “They won’t approve of… _us_ , you realize this? Jason Grace has been… he’d never approve.”  
  
Leo looked up at him with tired eyes. “Yeah, probably not. Who cares? It’s not going to last anyway, right?”  
  
“Last?” Octavian didn’t know what he meant. Being soulmates? “You think it will?”  
  
“ I think it might,” Leo admitted quietly.  
  
“But…you don’t want it to? Or…” Octavian asked, and Leo met his eyes but said nothing. “You don’t understand-“  
  
“I understand,” Leo said simply, cutting him off. “I’ve always understood.”  
  
“No,” Octavian shook his head. “This isn’t about us, Leo.”  
  
“Are you really about to, ‘ _it’s not you it’s me_ ’ soulmates?” Leo looked incredulous and increasingly angry.   
  
“No,” Octavian admitted. “This is just…It’s complicated.”  
  
Leo laughed like it was the understatement of the century, and rolled over, pretending to go back to sleep. Octavian found himself missing the closeness.  
  
They made it to southern coast of Florida the next week.   
  
It was a solemn affair, rather than joyous. Leo looked tired, and just in general unwell, as did Octavian. The ghosts they had encountered a few days earlier hadn’t helped anything.

The months they had spent alone island hopping, fighting to stay alive, that would have all been hard enough; being unsure where they stood with one another made it even harder. At a certain point Octavian realized Leo had accepted the idea that they were in some way bonded, but to Octavian’s surprise seemed to want to stay together. Which was conflicting.  Octavian himself wasn’t certain if that pleased him, or just gave him more troubles than before. It didn’t really change what needed to happen, and Octavian didn’t want to drag Leo along to witness Octavian’s past mistakes.   
Not to mention Octavian wasn’t entirely certain how long his own life span would be once everything came to a head.  
  
“So, do we split up here?” Leo asked evenly, shoulders dropped and not looking at Octavian. The words have more than one meaning and he didn’t need to have studied Shakespeare to understand that.   
  
“It’s safer …if I wait until we reach Camp Half Blood first.” Octavian answered only one of the questions, and Leo didn’t look any happier about it. On one hand, Octavian was finding it hard to leave, but at the same time there were those he needed to speak to anyway.  
Leo told him they’d be in New York tomorrow, provided no monsters stood in their way. Which, in their prior experience, seemed laughable.   
  
“I need a liver,” Octavian told Leo, who just shut his eyes and sat beside Festus. No jokes, no jeers, no teasing, no chastising. It was…unpleasant.  
  
Octavian saw nothing in the sheep liver he had obtained, no information about his fate, nothing to help him. The birds told him nothing; it was like since their time on the islands, as though his connection to the Gods had been mostly cut off.  
So, Octavian prayed to Apollo. He was not surprised when his father said nothing in return.   
  
He did dream though. In his dreams, Octavian did not see Apollo, but a young woman with black hair, pale skin, and a silver cloak. They were near the bay in San Francisco, and the moon seemed brighter than normal.

“ _You’re Diana_ ,” Octavian spoke, but his voice sounded odd inside the dream. She looked at him with unreadable emotion.  
“ _What has happened in New Rome? To the Gods_?” Octavian asked, moving closer. It was unlike walking, or floating exactly, a strange sensation.

“The Philosopher Plato was not entirely right, but he glimpsed something close to the truth. Humans began as one life, one soul, a being in unity.” The Goddess ignored his words and began to speak. Diana spared him barely a glance, looking over the water. “They were split, not because they posed a threat, but because humanity itself was unstable, at least compared to Gods. Demigods are stronger, in any number of ways, you are closer to the god. You feel your fates stronger than regular mortals. A soul tied, as you understand it, can be affected by need or circumstance. Death can be that circumstance.”  
 Diana fit him with a sharp expression, and Octavian felt more vulnerable than he ever had before, like a boy.

“Do you understand?”  
  
“ _Then… is no way to…remove my fate from his? If I…when I die, will it…how will it impact Leo_?” Octavian asked in a small voice.

“You’ve misunderstood.” Diana sighed, and walked to him. “Your soul doesn’t _wish_ to split from his, or his life, and so it will not. If you did truly wish for such a thing, it would be done without any effort. The fact is death did not change your bond. You may not have realized it, due to outside influence, but it was already there. Why do you think you are where you are?”  
  
Octavian was at a loss for words.  
“ _What do I do? How do I fix this_?” Octavian asked the woman who was in a manner of speaking, his aunt.  
  
“I’d recommend beginning by treating one another not as a burden. You’re stronger together, humans and demigods are always stronger together than apart. You’re on a complicated path right now, but I believe there is hope.  Others…well, an unhealthy unstable bond, it rips both of you apart.”

Octavian felt cold. “ _You mean our lives will end_?”  
  
“Ah, if only it was so simple as death.” Diana brushed the hair from his brow. “You children… so complicated, making things so much harder than they need to be.”  
  
“ _I should…stay with Leo, or bring him with me? Should I get him involved in all of this?_ ” Octavian asked, pressing further. Diana simply hummed, turning away.   
  
“Honesty is the best policy, as they say, especially with yourself. You’ve already made significant progress. Either way, you’ll need one another. You’re familiar with prophecy, aren’t you?” Diana paused, before something seemed to occur to her.   
“Also…Keep that boy away from my huntresses.”

Octavian woke up, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.   
  
Leo was still sleeping next to him, but his face was tense as well instead of relaxed. Had they had similar dreams? Did Diana visit Leo, or was it another unpleasant memory? Octavian pulled him closer. At the very least, Leo seemed to relax some in his sleep.   
Octavian had never in his life been a _huggy_ person, the very idea of it felt uncomfortable and gross, but Leo was different. That seemed to be the unfortunate summary of Octavian’s life recently.  
  
  
  
The next day they drew closer to Camp Half Blood, and the two were both visibly tense and silent throughout the trip. There had been shockingly absolutely no monster attacks between Florida and New York. It was both relieving, and worrisome. They had been on edge for so long, lapses felt artificial.

They were watching closely for any signs of continued battle, war, or monsters as Camp Half Blood became visible. They saw no smoke, they heard no crying, nor screaming. For better or for worse, the battle they had left was obviously finished.   
As they soared over the camp itself, it was evidently still being rebuilt. Some constructions even looked new, from what Octavian remembered of the layout of the camp. They seemed to be adding more facilities of some kind.  
 The first camper they saw had Leo shaking, and holding a hand up to his mouth. He looked relieved, possibly teary, but very happy.   
It was a good expression, Octavian thought, leaning his forehead against the back of Leo’s skull. Their people were still alive, they had won against Terra. It was an understandable emotional outburst. Octavian also felt relieved to see the Greeks, and it was hard for him to pinpoint why.  
  
They landed, Festus roared in victory. Leo and Octavian slowly got off the back of the bronze dragon and exchanged looks, not knowing what would follow. Had they had a last kiss? Leo took a step forward, before a noise caught both their attention.  
  
Figures ran towards them, and one was someone both Leo and Octavian recognized. A shocked looking Nico di Angelo stopped a few feet away, looking only at Leo, who stared back. They were both frozen solid, tense. And then just like that, the tensions broke. They both ran towards each other and embraced.  
  
“You were dead,” Nico gasped, before pulling back and looking Leo in the face, looking him over. Then, Nico pulled back and punched Leo in what looked like a remarkably hard hit to the shoulder.   
Leo yelped, and immediately grabbed at the spot. Octavian felt an inkling of anger starting to curl over his mind.

“FOR MONTHS. WE THOUGHT Yo- what?” A blond young man tugged on Nico’s shirt, and pointed at Octavian.   
Nico looked up, and recognition slowly dawned on his face.

“ _Octavian_?...How…”

“Long…very long story,” Leo said with an exhale, holding his arm. “That hurt. I deserved that, but wow.”

“Where are my troops?” Octavian asked, standing tall. Nico’s eyes narrowed, and he looked between the other blond and to Leo.  
  
“They’re… fine. They’re back in California. Look, I think we need to talk.” The last part was directed more to Leo than Octavian.  
  
Leo waved a hand. “Here’s a long story short, skipping a bunch of details: The cure I obtained brought us both back together. I couldn’t contact you, I tried, repeatedly. Then we got trapped in the sea of monsters. I think I picked up on a signal coming from here.”  
  
Nico raised an eyebrow, “That would be Harley you have to thank. But, still…That doesn’t excuse you.”  
  
“I think it does, actually.” Octavian cut in, and Nico looked surprised. “We nearly died time and time again. Monsters, daily. Storms. _Cyclops_. That doesn’t even include what it physically felt like to have your flesh and nerves rebuild themselves while you’re aware of what was happening. He had to pull out a broken tooth with no pain relief, with a pair of pliers. Whatever your grudge, end it now, he paid it in full.”

They all looked at a loss for words. Leo’s face was more shocked than the others, and his cheeks had darkened a few shades.  
  
“You…Octavian, are defending Leo?” Nico asked slowly, looking between them. “Are… _what_? I think I’m going to need more details, Leo. Don’t skip the details next time.”  
  
“They have a right to be upset, Octavian. I did sort of lie and go behind most of their backs to complete my plan.” Leo looked sheepish, “but…thank you.”

“What is even happening right now? Why are you wearing sweats?” Nico asked, astounded. “Why is this weirder than what is happening here?”

“Wait,” that got their attention. “What is happening here?” Leo asked, looking scared. Octavian felt increasingly worried. Had the Triumvirate targeted the Greeks as well?

Another guy came trotting up behind them and was looking at Octavian oddly. Nico looked at the guy and gestured between them.  
“Leo, Octavian…Leo, you know Will Solace, and…this is Lester. Lester Papadapoulos.” Lester glared very strongly at Nico. Nico sighed. “Or, as you might better know him-”  
  
‘Lester’ walked forward past Nico, and raised an arm to swing at Octavian. It would have hit Octavian in the nose… if he hadn’t been trained in a military since childhood or just spent the last number of months fighting daily. Octavian grabbed his wrist before it hit, pulled it back, spun the would-be attacker, and knocked him onto the ground.  
Nico and the other blond both winced and made a face, but made no moves to help.

“I should have known!” Lester yelled, face mushed into the ground. “I should have known that the two of you would end up together! The Valdezinator was fake wasn’t it?! No wonder I, of all individuals, couldn’t master it! Two liars as lovers. It’s only fitting! This is all your fault, Octavian!”   
  
“Excuse me?” Octavian narrowed his eyes, looking down at the pathetic figure on the ground. “ _My_ fault, who on earth-“ A sharp noise had Leo looking up in alarm, at Nico and Will who were in multiple stages of shock.

“Uh, _what_ now?” Will blinked. “Leo, what?”  
  
“ _Lovers_?” Nico repeated, thick eyebrows having disappeared into his hair.  
  
“I said- look, okay…so.” Leo began, holding up a finger, glancing at Octavian who was paying more attention to the guy on the ground. Nico and Will looked at Leo expectantly, and Leo let out a held breath. “…Yeah, okay, kind of. Yeah. I did say it was complicated.”  
  
“Who do you think you are to blame me?” Octavian sneered at Lester, and was about ready to step on him to shove him back into the grass.   
  
“I am Apollo!” Lester yelled, and was met with silence. “…Ask Nico!” They looked to Nico, who sighed and nodded.   
“Yeah, kind of. He’s being punished, supposedly for something relating to…” Nico looked at Octavian. “Well. He can explain for himself, but yes. This is Apollo, the Apollo.”   
Lester, or Apollo, was shorter than Octavian and looked nothing like him, or any other child of Apollo.   
  
Leo let out a cackle of laughter, distracting the group. “Did you say we were stranger than _this_? Because no, you’re very wrong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually hate haikus I hate that I did that to myself.
> 
> (this terrible chapters summary is basically   
> leo: why dont u love me?  
> octavian: ???since when did you want me to???)
> 
> Sorry for taking so long to update this, but here we are. Short chapter but it's mostly just a bridge. Leo and Octavian have mostly been alone, and got to know eachother apart from other people, other demigods. Time for that to change.
> 
> I have no intention of rewriting all of the Trials of Apollo, but there will still be some book-canon events taking place. I try to avoid copying scenes exactly, but some things are going to happen similarly.   
> While I didn't say it much outright, it's not really meant to be a story spoiler. Octavian was funded by the Triumvirate, and he's started to realize that as of last chapter, and knows they're still around and the influence minor deities have.  
> That's going to cause #issues. 
> 
> Next Up: Who is the Greek Octavian wants to talk to? Starts with a P and hates his life! That's right! It's Perry Jordan.


	7. Tony & Randall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ["You remind me of someone," Percy said. "I can't remember who." - Son of Neptune]
> 
> There might be a reason for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would have called this 'Exposition: The Chapter.' if it wouldn't have fucked up my chapter naming scheme.  
> (which, if you hadn't noticed, is all names relating to the actual Odd Couple play/movie/series)
> 
> Anyway, I might edit this more when I get home, I'm just tossing this up before I run off to work. I apologize for any mistakes.

  
  


Apollo, or ‘Lester’ was rubbing his arm where Octavian had shoved him into the ground. Apollo, the God.  
Apollo, the being Octavian’s mother slept with to gain status and favor.

This was not the figure he was expecting to be his father.  
  
Octavian spent much of his childhood before joining the legion, reading all about the God Apollo. Stories of glory, power, rule, and lost loves. (‘Love is fleeting’ his mother would say.)  
Apollo was often vain, at times his actions seemed not well thought out. However, he still appeared as a great hunter, a warrior in his own right – a model to so many Emperors, Kings, and rulers throughout time. Augustus, Octavian’s namesake claimed to be a son of Apollo, and created celebrations and games in honor of the deity.  
The God was complex beyond belief; few Gods specialized in so many things as Apollo had. Few were so beloved as Apollo was. Apollo kept his name and roles, between Greece and Rome. He was unlike any other.  
  
Lester was whining, his face reddened in anger and embarrassment. He had pimples, a paunch of a gut obvious through an old band shirt. He looked to be slightly younger than Octavian.  
This weak _boy_ was his father? Octavian felt more stunned than he had coming back to life. He’d spent the vast majority of his life trying to gain the favor of… _Lester Papadapoulos_?  
It was just one more brick that was being pulled out from under Octavian’s sense of self.  
  
“Okay, yes, actually. Let’s revisit the weirdness.” Nico turned back to Leo, looking accusatory and oblivious to the turmoil inside the Roman’s mind.  
“You and _Octavian_? Wait, no,” Nico waved a hand. “You like _men_? Do you know how much I…Never, at a single point in our trip-“  
  
“I had a crush on Jason,” Leo said, looking nearly surprised with himself as the words slipped out.  
  
“I…yeah, sorry. Wait,” Leo narrowed his eyes at Nico. “Why am _I_ apologizing? You barely spoke to me.”  
  
 Octavian looked back at Leo with some level of disgruntlement. He couldn’t comment on Leo having bad taste in men, however, given their situation.  
  
“I’m…” Nico paused, looking at the other camper. “I’m dating Will. I’m…gay.”  
  
“Oh,” Leo blinked, looking between the two. “I…if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t really fully realize until…er, congrats you two?”  
  
“ _Yeah_ …I’d say you too, but…” Nico looked pointedly at Octavian.  
  
“Maybe we can double date,” Leo joked lamely, trying to find something to say. Nico looked horrified at the very idea.  
  
“You can continue this later. We need to talk about New Rome, and my return.” Octavian cut in, glancing away from Apollo. “But first _…_ I need to talk to Percy Jackson.”  
  
 Leo looked disappointed at the mention of Octavian leaving. It was clear enough on his face that even Nico and Will looked mildly sympathetic, but no one said anything about it.  
 Octavian himself was still not entirely certain what exactly it was Leo wanted, or if it would change what was coming, but that discussion would have to come later. After speaking to Diana, Octavian knew he needed to talk to Leo in private, but it hadn’t felt right to discuss it while they were still flying.  
  
“That’s convenient… Percy’s here for once.” Nico said slowly, clearly suspicious of Octavian. Likely for good reason, Leo thought. Only an idiot would drop their guard around Octavian (Which, Leo supposed, made himself an idiot as of late.). “But, why? I’m pretty sure you two weren’t close. Unless someone else wants to spring new information on me.”  
  
“Oh, I think I know why!” Apollo brushed himself off, glaring. “Tell them where you got your funding, _son_. How much of all of this did you have your grubby little hands in?”  
  
“Grubby- wait, you know?” Octavian asked, which shouldn’t have been surprising, but everything Octavian had ever thought about his Godly parent had shifted. Nico di Angelo looked to Leo for explanation, but saw that Leo looked just as confused, and worried.  
  
Apollo huffed, crossing his arms over an old band t-shirt. “Please. I’m a God! Also… Rachel _may_ have told me when I got here.”  
  
“It’s been a lot of this.” Will explained quietly to the newcomers, and Leo whispered “ _I’m so sorry_ ,” to the couple. He was sympathetic but didn’t want to say it was because Apollo currently reminded Leo of Octavian when they had first met. Probably wouldn’t go over well.  
  
“You’re…right.” The Roman looked physically pained to admit it to _Lester_ of all beings.  “We need to talk.”  
Leo began to Octavian carefully, wondering how all this fit into his dreams and nightmares. He seemed motivated, focused, but somehow at the same time very distracted. Back then, when things began to change between them, Octavian said that them being lost was in some part his fault, that he felt it was fate. That war was inevitable. Leo guessed this had to be related.  
  
“It’s my mistake, and I need to correct it… but I don’t know if I can do it by myself, or if I’d be believed  or even allowed in New Rome any longer.” Octavian told the group, and Apollo seemed mildly surprised.  
  
“You’re…admitting you made a mistake?” Apollo asked, conflicting emotions on his face. “My children-“  
  
“Are fallible like anyone else, mortal or not. Maybe some of us more than others” Will said lightly. “I guess it must be in our genes, _Dad_.”  
  
“So, you’re saying you’re partly responsible for something that’s threatening New Rome, and _isn’t_ Gaea? Hence wanting to talk to Percy?” Nico asked, with a tilt of the head.  
  
Octavian gave just barely a nod in agreement before something pulled in their chest, and the group found themselves in the middle of a cabin. Leo stumbled into a wall; Octavian grabbed onto his shoulder to steady himself; Apollo gagged off to the side.  
“Wh-where’s Festus? Where’s my son?” Leo looked around, trying to figure out where they were. “Wait…Is this the Big House?”  
  
“Such inventive naming skills,” Octavian grumbled out, trying not to feel sick himself. “Let me guess: Is it a house that is large?”  
He shut up as soon as he was leveled with a _look_ from his Greek half brother, who turned to the son of Pluto.  
  
“Nico!” Will hissed. “Don’t do that!”  
  
Nico looked a bit queasy but shrugged a shoulder. “I’m fine, I can do that much.”  
  
“That was a lot of people, and after the fight earlier-“  
  
“ _Solace_ , I’m fine.” Nico insisted, grabbing his hand. “I’m okay.”  
  
“Uh, what is happening right now?” The group looked up to see Percy Jackson, a redheaded girl, and a centaur in the hallway.  
  
“ _Octavian_?” Percy nearly snarled upon seeing the other, brows furrowed, and looking ready to fight. Octavian didn’t think a fight against Percy Jackson would be as easy as it had been to defend against ‘Lester’.  
  
“Percy, hey man. It’s okay.” Leo stepped in front of Octavian, though given his size didn’t make a particularly reassuring guard. “We’re cool.”  
  
“Leo?” Percy blinked realizing the son of Hephaestus was there as well, then glanced around behind them. “I knew you were coming, but …I thought you were…”  
  
“Calypso…uh, she…decided to stay. We were there, but…” Leo finished his question for him, his voice unreadable. “I’ve… been traveling with Octavian. We sort of… came back to life together?”  
  
“Yeah, well I wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to travel with _him_.” Percy looked sympathetic, just briefly, before refocusing back on the Centurion. “How’d this happen?”  
  
“Octavian died with Leo, remember. The onager.” Nico muttered to Percy, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Octavian for more than a moment or two. A bronze sword was in his hand, having appeared from who knows where.  
  
“The Physicians cure did double duty, got us both back. Or, that’s the working theory, anyway.” Leo explained, and Octavian found it interesting to note that Leo didn’t look particularly comfortable around Jackson either. He had assumed all the Greeks had banded together, but this was not the relaxed Leo he had seen around Jason or the others. Nico di Angelo should have been a similar threat, if power alone was the issue, but neither had Leo as seemingly worried around the other younger teen.  
  
“Ignoring all that pointlessness. You had something to admit to, Octavian?” Apollo pressed, pushing Percy out of the way. The son of Poseidon looked to be counting back from ten within his head. “Crimes to come clean on? Apologies to be made to _me_ , specifically.”  
  
Everyone stopped, and Octavian took a breath.  
“…Is there anywhere to sit down to discuss this?”  
  
“…Right through here,” the redhead said. Octavian felt like he should know her name, but parts of his memory were like cotton. “Just, try not to wake up Seymour.”  
  
A few minutes later, Octavian, Leo, Percy, Nico, Will, Rachel, Chiron, and Apollo were sitting or standing around a big oak table.  
  
“So,” Percy waved at the Leo and Octavian. For the time being, his weapon was back to being a pen. “What happened? Where were you? Were you stuck in Ogygia? It’s been months. Jason and Piper were out searching for you. Frank and Hazel wanted to, but Frank’s got Praetorship to deal with and Hazel is training recruits.”  
  
“ _Zhang_ is Praetor?” Octavian blanched, before Leo patted him on the shoulder.  
  
“You really need to read the room, buddy, if you want to see 19.” Leo said before he clapped his hands together. “Okay, so where to start?”  
  
Leo explained, recounting his plan prior to death, and their unintentional trip back to Greece. He noticeably left out mention of any romantic nature between him and Octavian. He also didn’t mention their inability to hurt one another.  
 Originally, Octavian would have thought it was due to shame, Leo not wanting to tell anyone his involvement with Octavian. But, now, Octavian was beginning to believe it was more due to Leo not entirely trusting Percy Jackson.  
  
“So…You’re friends now? With _Octavian_? Do you know half the shit he did in New Rome, just while I was there?” Percy asked after a moment, and Leo bit his lower lip. “He threatened people, he blackmailed Hazel. That’s not even including what he did to Gwen.”  
  
“You’re friends with Clarisse now,” Rachael reminded Percy who gave a short laugh, and shook his head.  
  
“Clarisse was a bully, Octavian was a sociopath.” Octavian bristled, and opened his mouth to counter, but Leo stopped him.  
  
“No, I don’t know all what went down before. Not entirely, but we’ve literally spent every single day together for the last few months. I’d say I’m a better judge on his character than you are. I get why you’d think so, I did too at first. I mean, I’ve called him Hannibal behind his back. Like, repeatedly.” Octavian turned to narrow his eyes at Leo, but the younger boy continued. “But, in his defense, I think he really cares about New Rome. Maybe he did so in a batshit backwards way, but he’s not emotionless. He thought he was protecting his home.” Leo explained, and Percy looked skeptical. “He brought me a birthday present?” Leo offered after a second of thought, looking mildly sheepish.  
  
“Oh, I really hope it wasn’t a pillow pet.“ Leo’s face scrunched up in confusion.  
  
“Can we please get onto the treachery and Triumvirate before I die of old age?” Apollo half yelled, interrupting the three. “That’s something I can do now, apparently!”  
  
“Right, okay. Sure. Octavian?” Percy sat back in his chair. “What have you got? Why come to me, of all people. Even if Leo’s right, you certainly don’t like me. You know I don’t like you, and I could throw you further than I trust you.”  
  
Octavian took a deep breath. “…A little over two years ago, I was approached by a man who was interested in supporting New Rome. I assumed he was a normal human, or more distant descendant of a God – not anyone I was familiar with in the Senate or military. He spoke of my mother, which…wasn’t odd at the time. She’s tends to…push me towards what she believes to be _opportunities_.”  
  
“So, she’s as power hungry as you are?” Percy asked plainly, to which Octavian blatantly ignored.  
  
“I remember Julia, very smart.” Apollo frowned in thought. “I was more in my Roman state at the time, and I appreciated aspects of her personality…but she was very, uh, image driven. I assumed she’d make a fearsome mother.”  
  
“That’s one way to put it. Right, well, regardless of what you may think,” Octavian made eye contact briefly with Percy. “I don’t see eye to eye with her. She’s a bit of a…”  
“Heartless bitch?” Leo supplied helpfully. Octavian had a ‘well, you’re not wrong’ look on his face, but didn’t seem to want to say that much and continued.  
  
“…Suffice to say, given… _that_. I was skeptical at first, but, yes, I was eager to move up in the ranks. I think I was about 15 at the time.  I had some sway, I actually worked well with Reyna at the time.” Jackson and di Angelo looked highly skeptical. “…But, I wanted more. I could see Reyna moving up, Grace moving up. So, eventually, I listened to him. That was my first mistake. That was when I began to feel as though…I lost touch with myself. Looking back, moments are foggy, or as though I was watching a movie. I have gaps in memory. I know I fought on Mount Orthys, with the others in the legion. But now, I don’t remember virtually any of it happening. I feel as though I was being continuously pushed forward towards something. The Titan War was simply…a paving stone.”  
Realization seemed to be dawning on Leo, comments Octavian had made in previous conversations. Not being in control of his own fate.  
“It didn’t occur to me as odd until I came back to life and realized I could barely remember my own death. I ignored it though, we had…bigger issues to worry about. I suppose I didn’t want to think about it, either. Then I began to have dreams, visions. Things that made me question my life.” Jackson didn’t need to know a good deal of that was due to Octavian’s relationship with Leo.  
“It became undeniable eventually, that something was wrong with me, or had been wrong with me. It was…I guess the best way to describe it is depressing. I was questioning everything I had ever done, all my wants and desires, all my plans. I was a chess piece. At first, I associated it with Terra, Gaia. It made sense. She was gone, I came back to life, and the issue was gone. Until I realized those problems existed before she had awoken, before you ever showed up in Camp Jupiter, Jackson.”  
  
“Gaea’s had some sway for a while, though.” Leo looked at him, tapping the table. “She killed my mom, when I was 8. Been trying to off me for quite some time. For all we know, she could have still been influencing you for years.”  
  
Octavian looked mildly taken back, he’d not known the full details of Leo’s encounters with Gaia. Moreover, it was his expression that had Octavian stopping. He’d seen the serious sides of Leo Valdez repeatedly, but they were usually combined with sadness or pain. This, this was a calculating young man, far from purely chaotic and spontaneous.  
  
 “You may be right, however…around a month or so ago, I realized the man I contacted was very much not human. And, didn’t seem to be working for Gaia. He was a God, sort of.”  
Leo mouthed ‘sort of?’ at him with an incredulous look, but Octavian continued.  
  
“Ultimately…I unintentionally and intentionally… helped him infiltrate New Rome,” Octavian admitted fully. “I took his money, and his weapons, anything he had to offer for the cause.”  
  
“Triumvirate Holdings!” Apollo cut in with a vindicated yelp. Leo looked confused, but the others seemed to have a vague awareness of what he was talking about.  
  
“Triumvirate Holdings is a group of ultra-rich men, at least one of which is the actual emperor Nero. Just found that one out. Still working on processing that bit of information.” Rachel noticed Leo’s face, and explained. “They seem to have had influence for centuries, and are definitely not entirely human, not anymore.”  
  
“So, they definitely aren’t set on world domination or anything like that, right? That’s _never_ how these things go.” Leo said, to which only Percy gave a tired, wry laugh.  
  
“Yes,” Octavian agreed, with Rachel more than anything. “Triumvirate Holdings was the group that funded our…my war efforts, and I believe…influenced my actions. Fed my aspirations, until they…I suppose, ultimately killed me.” Octavian stopped just briefly when Leo grabbed his hand under the table, it was warm and comforting. Familiar. No one else seemed to notice besides Will Solace that was seated to Octavian’s left.  
“It’s not just one God, it’s at least three. Three emperors turned God, at least that I’m aware of.” No one looked shocked by that news at least, they had to have been working on similar theories regarding the other members. “… I believe their ultimate goal is the destabilization of both demigod camps, of all the Gods, because-“  
  
“We’re what’s standing in the way of a full countrywide, if not worldwide takeover. Right?” Leo asked, eyes big in realization, as the cogs began to fit together in his mind. “They’ve got the money, and now they have the perfect opportunity. The Titans, Giants, Gods…all scattered right now, right? The Camps are rebuilding, Olympus is fractured with Apollo gone, the Titans were weakened, and Gaea isn’t going to be doing shit for a long time. This is the best time for them to attempt to take control.” Leo finished, and Octavian nodded, expression grim.  
  
“So, the Titan War, Giant War…all just…distractions?” Rachel looked horrified at the idea. “So many of us died…”  
“It makes sense…” Percy said after a quiet moment. He shook his head and smiled, though it wasn’t a happy one. “It’s funny, Octavian, when we first met, you reminded me of Luke…I wonder if…” Percy didn’t continue, it was obvious enough what he meant.  
If Luke had been influenced too, pushed towards Kronos, like Octavian had been pushed towards forwarding Gaea’s awakening. If not for Triumvirate Holdings, how many would still be alive?  
Nico had a dark look cross his face as the overarching implications became clear. Which deaths could have been avoided?  
  
“…Luke Castellan?” Octavian asked after a pause, the name ringing a bell somewhere in his head. Leo had mentioned him once before, but there was something else in his mind.  Something deep and buried. “Yes... I believe he was mentioned to me by them as well.”  
  
A flash went through his mind, of a man slightly older than Octavian, with a large scar down his face. They could have been brothers, or cousins.  
_“They really can’t help themselves from lying to us, can they?” He had said, holding out his hand to shake._

“I…think I met him.” Octavian said slowly, and those at the table looked at him with renewed focus and trepidation. “I met Luke Castellan…I think just briefly. We were introduced. That’s why…”  
Octavian looked at Percy Jackson with astonishment. “That’s why I never trusted you, but your appearance in camp hadn’t surprised me either.”

Percy looked like something dawned on him at roughly the same time. “…You knew I was Greek before anyone told you. You said it was the auguries, but…”  
  
“How much contact did you have with Luke?” Nico asked him, but Octavian shook his head.  
  
“I honestly don’t know. This is news to me, as well.”  
  
“An ultra-powerful group of minor God Kings targeted young…both weirdly blond similar looking men with large aspirations of power and glory, with the intent to dispose of them and use that destabilization to their benefit. Plus, they have the resources to fund probably hundreds of more wars.” Rachel surmised, frowning. “Great. That’ll end great.”  
  
“Actually…” Leo had spent the discussion looking mostly at the table or Octavian, tapping out his thoughts, plans onto the desk or onto the back of Octavian’s hand. A slow impish smile began to curl over his face, one that had many teachers and foster parents running for the hills in the past. Octavian liked that expression.  
“We have an advantage that they don’t know of. Octavian _didn’t stay dead_.”  
  
“If their intention was that these young men were expendable, and wouldn’t be able to turn against them…” Chiron spoke slowly, working out what Leo meant.  
  
“With Luke dead, there was nearly no evidence they’d been involved, right?” Leo looked to Rachel, who nodded. “They had to be counting on Octavian dying as well, again, nothing to connect back to them. No one would be surprised they got themselves killed, or died during a battle. No one would question Luke dying, no one would look too closely into Octavian’s death. You burned virtually every bridge you made, and they probably made sure of it.”

“You did seem more…unhinged,” Nico eyed Octavian. “During the fight with Gaea. You weren’t what I had met before at Camp Jupiter.”  
  
Leo’s eyes were bright. “But, now! Now we know who they are, and what they want. Additionally, since we’ve been in the Sea of Monsters, I can’t imagine they know yet that Octavian isn’t still dead. We basically have an inside source; one they don’t know of.”  
  
Apollo looked pale. “We…had another as well, someone that knew somewhat about the group.”

“Let me tell you about what has been happening at Camp in your absence.” Chiron spoke slowly, before explaining the issues with the Oracles, with Meg, and ultimately: Nero.  
Octavian looked slightly pale, and Leo felt horrifically guilty. If it wasn’t for him, the Camp wouldn’t have had to deal with all this alone. But, at the same time, if not for him, Octavian would be dead.  
Meanwhile, Octavian had no idea they’d target the oracles.  It made sense, they were shoring up other pathways, other means of stopping them. But still, oracles and prophecy were a sensitive subject to any child or legacy of Apollo.

“Do you think they’ll kill Meg?” Apollo asked, looking mildly terrified, and extremely guilty. “She’s… _very_ annoying, but…I don’t want her to die.”  
  
“I think it’s more likely they’ll try to lead her to her death, rather than outright murder.” Leo said, before pausing at the unhappy faces around the table. “I mean…we’ll save her before that happens though? That’s kind of our thing, right?”  
  
“I’d really like about three weeks of peace,” Will ran a nervous hand through his hair. “No offense, Percy, but I really feel like ever since you became a camper, things have just bumped up to Red Alert all the time.”  
  
“Oh, oh no. I agree with you entirely.” Percy agreed, looking much older than he was. “Three weeks, boy, that would be great.”  
  
“Jackson,” Octavian leaned forward, and sounded nearly desperate now.  “I need to contact New Rome and warn them. Right now, we’re weak. Right now, some of the Pantheon isn’t even in Olympus.” Apollo made a small noise. “Even knowing what we know now, if they don’t start preparing, I don’t know how many of my people will die.”  
  
Percy leveled Octavian with a look. “Octavian, I have to ask… Why should I trust that you’re doing this altruistically? I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I lived in New Rome with you. I knew Luke. You can’t tell me everything you did, everything you said, was entirely out of your control. There was a reason they targeted you specifically, wasn’t there? How am I supposed to believe that you only want to help, when you’re the man who told me you ‘hoped it hurt’ when you branded me? How do I know you’re not still helping Triumvirate?”  
Percy laid out his arm, showing his SPQR markings.  
  
Octavian looked at it, and then glanced down at his own tattoos.  
   
“I wanted status, I wanted power. I’ve never really had friends, never believed I needed them outside of needing connections. I understand why they chose me. The one thing I had, was New Rome. If there’s one thing that’s always been true, it’s that I only wanted what I thought was best for New Rome, for Camp Jupiter.” Octavian glanced to his hand entwined with Leo’s below the table. “Having been removed from my home for so long, the only place I’ve known.  Having felt death. I’ve…had time to question what I thought was right. What I thought was best. I still…would like to be Praetor. That hasn’t changed. I still want to become a senator. But, there’s things now… I feel differently about.” Octavian squeezed Leo’s hand, just slightly. “I’ve reassessed what I want to protect, and how.”  
  
“I don’t want to see your camp destroyed, Jackson. I want to join forces. Not under Roman rule, after traveling with this one for so long, it’s fairly clear to me that isn’t feasible. But, we worked well together, eventually.” Leo looked surprised, but happily so. Granted, he was slightly miffed it took threat of death and Percy Jackson for Octavian to be open about his wishes.  
  
“So, you want to tell me what happened to Gwen, Octavian?” Percy asked, green eyes sharp and focused, reminding Leo more of Annabeth than the Percy he knew on the Argo. “You remember that, don’t you? Because I do. She was stabbed through, with a pilum. You were the only one we saw without one after the fight. You didn’t look sad, or sympathetic, not until later. Tell me you didn’t kill her. Tell me they did it, tell me something.”  
  
Octavian thought back on the day. Jackson had just hit him over the head, knocking him unconscious briefly. Then, the next thing he remembered was walking towards the Fields of Mars and seeing Gwen with her back turned.  
_‘She won’t die,_ ’ a voice in the back of his head said _. ‘Not permanently. Isn’t that interesting?’  
Does haruspex work on demigods? Octavian had pondered, watching from a few feet behind her as Gwen grab up something from the fields. _  
  
The next thing he recalled really was watching Gwen come back to life, and his own pilum was missing. He never remembered seeing her dead.  
  
Octavian had a flash of his dream, of dead Romans lining the roads.  
  
“I…think…I may have killed her.” The tone of the room changed, even those who didn’t know Gwen were on edge. “I don’t …honestly recall. I don’t remember ever seeing her dead body… But I remember knowing, for some reason, that she wouldn’t stay dead.”  
  
“Convenient amnesia. Getting a bit old, honestly.” Percy glanced at Apollo just briefly.  
  
Octavian shook his head. “You don’t need to believe me. I’m not asking for …forgiveness. I’m aware New Rome will likely never let me back, regardless of what I want. You could throw me in a cell, until the end of days. Just tell New Rome. At the very least, you know I’m telling the truth about the Triumvirate.”  
  
“Well, I’d love to toss you in a cell, but we very unfortunately have another prophecy to fill.” Percy suddenly looked far less like he was interrogating Octavian, his entire posture changing and eyes losing the sharp edge they had earlier. Percy motioned at Apollo and retold the part of the prophecy Apollo had received earlier.  
“I think the three of you are who the prophecy is referring to. Festus is a three seater, after all. If you lead Apollo back to being, well, Apollo…The Triumvirate might not stand a chance once Olympus and both camps are aware of what they’re planning.”  
  
“I’ll destroy them,” Apollo agreed. “I’ll reign down a fury of arrows so thick it’ll-“  
  
“Blot out the sun?” Will asked, sighing deeply. “That’s from the movie 300…”  
  
“…They got it from me, surely.”  
  
“So, you’re saying…Festus, Octavian, Apollo, and I…need to go on a quest. Together?” Leo said very slowly, emotions gone from his face. “Me, Octavian, and his _dad_.”  
  
“I’m so very sorry,” Nico didn’t look sympathetic.  
  
“Look, Octavian…You’re a gigantic dick,” Percy said plainly, pocketing his pen. “I do believe you, though. Just had to make sure. These are my friends and family we’re talking about. Plus, I’m pretty sure if you hadn’t changed somewhat, Leo would have toasted you by now.”  
  
 Leo exchanged an amused look with Octavian, who very nearly cracked a smile. “Well, I would have probably at least tried.”  
  
“They’re dating,” Apollo cut into their moment, looking petulant, and Percy choked on air.  
  
“ _The what are whoing_?”  
  
“Okay, it’s…a long story! I …I’ve said that a lot today.” Leo stood as well, and began talking with his hands more than anything. “It’s… _complicated_.”  
  
“Complicated? It’s a soul bond. Soulmates. Obviously. Stupid mortals…” The former God seemed like a lot of his energy had gone.  
  
“Soulma- I just thought you were dating?!“ Nico looked scandalized as only a 100 something year old Italian could.  
  
“So what?! Relax about it! We’ll talk later, jeez.” Leo hissed at Nico. Nico, Percy, and Will very much looked like they wanted to discuss it right now.  
  
“That’s not because of Nero too, is it?” Rachel asked Octavian. Apollo noticeably looked uncomfortable hearing the name.  
  
Octavian looked between them, only Rachael and Chiron seemed to be paying attention to him anymore. The rest of the Greeks were nattering at Leo. He felt mildly annoyed at the implication his relationship with Leo was also the product of someone else.  
  
“I don’t believe so, and additionally, I never met Nero. That’s not the man I met.” That got their attention back.  
  
“…Worse than Nero? The Beast?” Apollo asked, looking conflicted with himself. Like he should know but didn’t.  
  
Octavian thought back on the memory of their meeting, recounting it to the best of his memory.  
“Much worse.”  
  
It had been in the Temple of Apollo, Octavian it quite well. He had knelt beside the statue of his father, hoping for visions and prophecies. A man walked up behind him, and at first Octavian thought nothing of it. It wasn’t uncommon for New Romans to visit and pay tithings to the temples.  
  
_“Apollo, a great God. The sun God. Quite the character, but I always liked that about him.”_ The man had said, catching the other Octavian’s attention. Octavian gave a polite nod of the head.   _“I’ve spoken with your mother, Julia. A beautiful name. My favorite name. Though, Octavian too, a very powerful name. Historic names.”  
_  
_“Who are you?”_ Octavian had asked, suspicious of anyone who spoke highly of his mother.  
_  
“I’m someone invested in seeing New Rome regain glory, power. I hear you carry a lot of sway, Octavian. You’re moving up the ranks. I’ve also heard that a son of Jupiter, and a daughter of Bellona are keeping you from what you’re meant to be. I want to help. I want to help Rome.”_ The man had walked forward, he didn’t look particularly threatening. He wasn’t particularly tall or wide, a bit shorter than Octavian even then. Though, Octavian had grown up faster than he grew out.  
_“You know, I know a boy that reminds me a lot of you. He’s…angrier, but you’re both so very passionate. A romantic dream, of a better world.”  
_  
The man had turned to fully look at Octavian, next to the statue of Apollo.   _“You, though. Octavian. Why, you could become the next Augustus. With our support, of course. We’ll be in touch.”  
_  
The room had grown quiet after Octavian described the meeting. Chiron seemed to have already realized who the man was.  
“After that, I vaguely remember meeting a few other associates from time to time, but for the most part we never met in person. At least not that I remember.” Octavian finished.  
  
“So…Who was it?” Leo asked, the room similarly looked curious, but Apollo looked simply fearful.  
  
“Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Or, otherwise known as Caligula,” Octavian answered. “The Triumvirate is composed of Emperors Caligula, Commodus, and Nero.”  
  
Apollo fainted moments later, onto Percy’s shoulder, who shoved him off and onto the floor.  
  
“The…actual ones?” Leo looked to Octavian and suddenly had a flash of memory. _“I’m not the_ actual _Octavian!”_ Octavian had said, when Leo mentioned Calypso way back when their journey started. No wonder he wanted to emphasize he wasn’t a long-lost Emperor returned from the dead.  
“How’d they become Gods?”  
  
“Hard to say, but we can talk about it more later.” Chiron looked upon Apollo’s form on the ground. “I don’t believe you’ll be heading out tonight. Why don’t you stay the night? I’m sure your siblings would love to see you again, Leo. Harley missed you quite a bit. And, Octavian….”  
  
“Welcome, to Camp Half Blood.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sounds like a Quest!
> 
> Someone (thein273) guessed Gaea was influencing Octavian, specifically because of the heavy implications during Son of Neptune that Octavian killed Gwen. So, very close. Also, great timing. (There was always a reason Octavian's mom was named Julia )  
> I'd actually multiple times intended to talk about Gwen in previous chapters, and ended up waiting until now. I don't think this will be the last it comes up, either. Certain large Canadians are not going to be thrilled.
> 
> ... I had to reread good portions of Son of Neptune and Hidden Oracle for this chapter.  
> (I also spent a good deal of time reading up on my Roman politics, and friendly suggestion here; picture the always sunny in Philadelphia cast whenever you're reading about Caligula.)
> 
> I've been writing on this chapter for awhile, and kept adding and adding and adding until I realized I had enough for two chapters, so the next won't be too dreadfully far off into the future.  
> Also, a bit softer of a chapter, as Octavian is more introduced to the Campers and Leo meets his sibs again. 
> 
> I wonder where Octavian will stay for the night.


	8. Jack & Klugman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Downtime at Camp Half Blood. The boys have a moment away from each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost posted one monster chapter, but instead I'm breaking the chapter into two. So, the next chapter will be up sooner rather than later.
> 
> These two chapters will definitely be an In Between type chapter, but I really wanted Octavian and his Greek half siblings chilling for a bit. I want him to see Camp Half Blood.

 

Octavian and Leo were briefly looked over by Will in the infirmary section of the Big House. Apollo was still out cold, in a cot. The former god’s face was scrunched up, like he was having nightmares. He mumbled things in his sleep occasionally, about his father, about Meg, about death.  
  
“Well, all things considered, you both seem _fairly_ healthy for what you’ve been through. I think you both need a good wash and haircuts though.” Will flipped through some paperwork, then tossed it onto a rolling serving cart serving as medical supply transport.   
Octavian’s hair was falling into his eyes, and Leo’s hair while curly was down to his chin. Leo pulled on a strand, straightening it, to reveal it was an inch or longer than it looked curled. Yes, a cut was probably due.  
  
 “I can’t comment on your end Octavian, but you look healthier than last time I saw you. Granted that wasn’t very long, and moments before you exploded.”  
Octavian grimaced, but Will buzzed by him and onto Leo.   
“Leo, though, you’ve lost weight. I’m kind of worried about that, but I’m guessing you’ll gain more of it back now that you can eat actual food and aren’t constantly exerting energy fighting.” Will said, grabbing one of Leo’s arms and waving it around slightly, the younger of the two grabbing back his arm quickly. Leo didn’t seem surprised by the weight loss, but Octavian was taken a bit by surprise. That didn’t seem right, they had been eating relatively well their entire voyage.  
  
“How much?” Will quirked an eyebrow at Octavian, questioning the blond now speaking up after being quiet during their examination. “How much weight has he lost?”  
  
Leo didn’t look like he wanted that to be answered, his face flushing a terracotta red, but Will responded anyway. “While it’s a _very_ flawed system, and doesn’t account for muscle mass… Using BMI just for reference....when Leo arrived at Camp, he was just barely underweight for his height. When he and the others left for New Rome, he had just hit a healthy BMI. Right now, he’s about 15 pounds underweight and there’s not much fat on your body. You’re bone, organs, and some muscle. Leo, at your height, your _lowest_ healthy weight should be about 95-100 pounds. You’re sitting at 84 pounds, Leo. I’d like to see that in the triple digits at least. You might have a naturally thinner build than some, but you used to have much chubbier cheeks, and I don't you magically shed them due to puberty in the span of half a year.”  
  
“I burn a lot of calories, like literally burn them. Get it. _Fire pun_.” Leo grumbled, looking away from where Octavian was trying to catch his expression.   
  
“You should be happy, I’m a medic telling you to eat more caloric dense meals. Do you know how happy Nico was when I gave him the all clear to drink as many milkshakes as he wanted for a month? He almost nearly smiled.” Will joked, but Leo still had this look on his face. A nervous look, uncertain. Octavian had no idea what that meant and wasn’t sure about how to approach the topic.  
“Look, I know you guys are going to head out again soon, but I’d really recommend you both getting some rest and good full meals. You can stay in the Apollo cabin, if you want.” Will told Octavian. “We _are_ sort of brothers.”  
  
“…Demigods in New Rome don’t arrange themselves by their Godly parent.” Octavian answered slowly, it felt like a test. That was partly due to there being so many legacies in camp, arranging by parent would be pointless, not to mention uneven. A Jupiter cohort would be about as useful as a Steve cohort.  
  
“You haven’t said no,” Will pointed out. Octavian looked at Leo, who finally gave a small shrug.  
  
“You can stay in the Big House, probably, if you’re uncomfortable with them.” Leo reassured Octavian, sensing his discomfort. That wasn’t what Octavian wanted to hear.  
  
“I’ll stay here, then.” Octavian answered, and Will didn’t look particularly upset about it There were bound to be those who wouldn’t take kindly to Octavian being there, and he’d rather not risk his neck.   
  
“Where will you be?” Octavian asked Leo, who had begun messing with some medical equipment.  
  
“Oh…” Leo looked like it just dawned on him as well. “…I mean, _technically_...I’m supposed to be in the Hephaestus Cabin. But…I usually just stayed in the Bunker, by myself.”  
  
“Then…can I not stay there?” Octavian questioned, feeling out of his element and uncertain. “With you?”  
  
“You two are cute in a really weird way,” Will said after a second, staring at the two, who had forgotten momentarily he was there. “Like, have you ever seen an aye-aye? Lemur thing. That’d what your relationship is. Cute but really weird.”  
  
“….Thank you?” Leo turned to Octavian and mouthed, _what the fuck is an aye-aye_ , but judging by his expression, Octavian hadn’t found it to be a compliment.  
  
“That being said, uh, no offense. Generally, we don’t house people who are … _dating_ …together.” Will told the two, looking very awkward about the whole situation. “It’s…not usually something that comes up, given each cabin is arranged by parent.”

Leo rolled his eyes and threw a wad of paper he’d been tearing to small shreds into a nearby trash bin looked like a medical pamphlet of some kind (‘ _So, You’ve Been Cursed’_ ).   
“Yeah, because it’s not like we haven’t been alone together for months already. For all you know, we could have been jerking each other’s gherkins this entire time.”  
  
“ _Oh my gods_ , I hate you _so_ much.” Octavian whispered, pinching his nasal bridge and begging his migraine to go away. “I take it all back, I _welcome_ the opportunity to be away from him.”   
  
Will slowly fixed Octavian with a very pointed look   
“…I don’t care where you guys stay honestly, but Chiron will. Moreover, once any other campers find out, they’ll think it’s preferential treatment. The last thing we need is a camp full of hormonal magical teenagers all wanting to sleep together. None of us know what a demigod pregnancy would even be like. It keeps me up at night.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Octavian said before Leo could start arguing. “I’ll stay…in the _Big House_.”  
  
Will tossed him a lollipop, wrapping up his equipment. Rachel walked in holding a big cup, and handed it to Will, who handed it to Leo. Leo stared down at it.  
  
“Thanks Rachel, we’re on for Downton Abbey later, right?” Rachel sent the medic a thumbs up before leaving. It was unclear if she heard him, she had headphones on the entire time.   


While they had somewhat similar positions in their camps, Octavian assumed neither he nor Rachel were particularly alike. This so-called _Oracle_. He remembered more of her now, arguing with the girl during their brief meeting. The news of the harpy, the sibylline books she had memorized. That part stuck out, because it was something _Octavian_ felt strongly about, not the triumvirate. It had been his wish for years to find the books, but Reyna and the Praetors before her never allowed any quests for them.  
  
A sudden wave of nausea washed over him, as Octavian remembered something he had said at that meeting, to Rachel.   
“ _Ha!_ _You’re the Oracle of Delphi? Right. And I’m the Emperor Nero!_ ”  
  
“Sorry, bud, I’m serious about the underweight thing. Had Rachel grab one of these for you pretty much the second I saw you. Shouldn’t taste bad, but it does have an entire avodaco in it, along with some almond butter, bananas, whey protein, and a bunch of other veggies and fruit.” Will was talking while Octavian went into his own head, shifting through murky memories. Leo said nothing but glared at Will, while taste testing the concoction slowly.  
  
 “Still, Octavian. I really think you should meet your half siblings here. Maybe at dinner, or before?” Will offered, and Octavian finally grudgingly agreed. “It’ll be great, don’t worry. We can all talk about how weird our dad is. Oh, and sorry by the way.”  
  
Octavian looked up at his name being called. “....For what?”  
  
Will held up a very bright orange t-shirt. “You guys need new clothes, you smell like ocean…shrimp, and…well, this is all we have.”  
  
Octavian walked out of the Big House, looking mildly shell shocked in a Camp Half Blood T-shirt. Leo was trying to not laugh and failing spectacularly.

“Why… _orange_?” Octavian whispered, looking down at himself. “No one looks good in orange.”  
  
“Narcissistic much? Wait, no, I hate that guy. Anyway, I look fine.” Leo countered with a big grin. Octavian didn’t want to answer that.  
“Is it that much worse than _purple_? Orange and Purple, it’s like fucking Spyro the dragon.” Leo commented, sucking on the straw of his milkshake, while Octavian huffed.  
  
“I keep petitioning them to change our shirts. The purple they use isn’t authentic Roman Purple, or royal purple. Language has changed, definitions of colors have changed. We’d probably now call it a dark fuchsia or wine red, or something similar. The dyes were produced from a mollusk, and had a natural variety of shades, ranging from brighter reds to more commonly referred to true purples, but the…”  
Octavian turned to look at Leo. Leo’s smile hadn’t left his face, curved around his straw.

“You’re cute for a nerd. Sometimes. Big ol’ scarecrow nerd.”  
  
“As long as I’m not an aye-aye,” Octavian countered. “Wait, _scarecrow_?”  
  
“You know, I really wish we had cellphones, so I could record this.”   
  
The two leaving the Big House looked at Percy walking up towards them. He gave a once over to Octavian’s shirt, and said nothing, but had a big toothy grin on his face.  
  
“Not the flirting, that’s honestly horrific to me, might need to talk about it with my therapist. But, the shirt? I need pictures. Hazel needs pictures. Jason needs pictures. I might make a calendar out of it. January, Octavian in camp orange. December, Octavian in camp orange. Maybe with a festive little hat.”   
  
“I hate you, so very much.” Octavian said dryly, and Percy ignored him. At least that much was familiar.  
  
“I have the means, ability, and drive to help you complete such a project.” Leo said to Percy in mock seriousness. At least, Octavian hoped it was mocking.  
  
 “So, Leo. Some stuff has changed around camp since you’ve been gone. New buildings, new additions to existing things. I’m here to give you guys the run down. Plus, I had to go ahead and warn everyone that Octavian wasn’t invading the camp. Thankfully Clarisse isn’t here or she would have killed you already, which is only half joke and more a warning. You see a big scarred girl running at you, probably go the other way, or up a tree.”  
  
Leo, himself, had felt a bit miffed since they had returned to camp, and until now hadn’t really realized why. He was overjoyed to be back, to see familiar faces, to know everyone was alright…  
But, he hadn’t had even a minute alone with Octavian since they landed. They’d had no time to talk, no time to say whatever they wanted to say to one another. Even if they ended up on Quest together, which it sounded like, they’d be going alongside _Apollo_.   
Not really the best environment to discuss the intricacies of their relationship.   
  
Percy just compounded the issue. Leo always had complicated feelings towards the older camper. They’d never been close on the Argo, not really. Not that they didn’t get along, or even see eye to eye on some jokes. It was just…His powers were virtually the direct mirror of Leo’s, and they’d even had similar interactions with Calypso. Leo was still angry at Percy for forgetting about Calypso, leaving her there on the island. It was something Leo felt guilt over himself, but he wasn’t about to forget.  
  
Moreover, Leo always felt like a second fiddle to him. Percy just represented everything Leo could have been, and wasn’t.  
  
“You look healthier, you know.” Percy said, breaking Leo out of his own mind as they walked towards the cabins. “Not you Leo, sorry, you’re still tiny.” Leo grimaced and raised his drink, muttering ‘ _cheers_ ’. “Octavian, you look healthier. That’s actually partly why I’m inclined to believe you.”  
  
Octavian had looked no more happy with Percy showing up than Leo had, but frowned as the other man began speaking.  
  
“See, when we met, you were super scrawny. Sort of like…” Percy glanced at Leo, who glared and crossed his arms. “Well, like Leo said. A scarecrow. You were thin, and your skintone was always a bit off... Like maybe you were anemic, or something like that. Maybe get that checked? Plus, you had this sort of …manic look. It would come and go, though, now that I think about it. Sometimes you looked cold, calculating, sometimes you looked like you had about fifty cups of coffee and were ready to push the boundaries of science and nature to places they shouldn’t go. Again, sort of like…er.”   
  
Percy stopped, and glanced at Leo again. Percy appeared to be connecting dots in his head. Leo was well aware people tended to describe him similarly – not so much the cold and calculating part, but there were times Leo went from hyper-active and ‘silly’ as some would say, to viewing everything and everyone as a part or component.   
‘ _I try not to think. It interferes with being nuts_.’ Leo had said, but it wasn’t true. It was part of his cover. If anything, he overthought things.   
  
“Anyway, you look slightly more human now. You’ve filled out some, you’ve got some color. Plus, you look a bit less murderous. Except...”  
Except right that moment, as Percy was actively speaking.   
  
“Food must be terrible,” Leo said, distracting the Roman by pinching Octavian’s bicep. Firm, but still thin. “It’s a good thing I’ve fattened you up some. At least one of us did.”  
  
“It’s the military, the food is bad by definition. Try living on MREs.” Octavian pulled his arm away, studying Leo again. Leo had rolled his eyes, as though eating military rations didn’t seem like a huge issue. “…That being said, I’ve already told you you’re a good cook.”  
He had no idea why Leo hadn’t gained more weight, was the cost of his fire powers that much greater on his body? How did his power truly function, anyway? That wasn’t something Octavian ever concerned himself with in the past, he never questioned his own gifts, but they seemed to be taking a toll on Leo.    
  
“Damn right, I am.” Leo beamed up at him, missing tooth still noticeable. Will had made it clear that it couldn’t be regrown, but Octavian mentioned in passing there being dentists in New Rome. An implant plus some ambrosia would fix the issue quickly. Provided they make it there alive.  
  
“That’s not a Greek Vulcan trait, is it? Cooking?” Octavian wondered, and before Leo could say anything, Percy cut in.  
  
“No, that’s all Leo. In addition to keeping us in the sky, Leo also cooked for all of us. He also made sure things on the Argo were personalized, even though according to Jason, no one saw Leo for more than a couple minutes stretched across a few months while he built the ship. Leo didn’t even know some of us very well, or at all, so the time he put into researching what would make us happy was actually really cool.”  
  
Leo was left feeling a bit dumbfounded, no one had actually ever said much of anything about Leo cooking for them, or the work he had put into the Argo. Art and design became Hazel’s thing. Cooking, well, that became Calypso’s thing while he was on Ogygia. Leo was just the …repair boy. He’d barely even had a full conversation with Percy before.   
Just like Jason, just like Frank, Leo hated how nice they all could be. Maybe, he really was like Octavian in a lot of ways.   
  
“So, anyway,” Percy seemingly moved away from the subject. “I’ll be heading out after the tour. I’m not staying at camp tonight. College to prepare for and all that. So, Octavian?”  
  
“Yes?” the Roman said cautiously, looking between the two dark haired young men.

“I have a very specific fatal flaw.” Percy walked up until he was inches away from Octavian’s face. Octavian was a few inches taller, but Percy still had more muscle. “You may not _entirely_ be the same guy that ripped apart my pillow pet, but…You hurt Leo, or my friends, _I_ hurt _you_. _Capiche_?”  
  
Octavian and Leo both stared, entirely confused. Was Percy Jackson giving Octavian the _Dad talk_?  
  
Octavian didn’t think it would be wise to mention that he was 100% the person who ripped apart that toy. That was a clear memory, there was no influence. He’d do it again, too, just out of spite.  
  
“Sorry,” Percy’s face changed expressions, and into a handsome smile. “I have a baby sister now. According to Annabeth, I’ve become sort of overprotective of the.... smaller campers.”  
  
“You’re killing me here, Jackson.” Leo groaned. “I’m like 5’6. Maybe 5’7!”  
  
For once, and possibly the only time in their entire lives, Octavian and Percy exchanged the exact same look. It was a look that crossed all languages and communication barriers, a look of pure understanding.  
  
“ _I’m_ 5’8. You’re…very maybe 5’1,” Percy said slowly.   
  
“That’s kind of you to round up, Jackson. Much kinder than whoever told him he’s 5’6.”  
  
Leo huffed, and began to stomp off, when he heard something that made him stop.  
  
“Hey, by the way. I never heard your last name.” Percy asked Octavian, who raised an eyebrow. Leo didn’t know that. How did Leo not know that yet?  
  
“Gallo. Octavian Gallo. Italians don’t traditionally have middle names.”  
  
Someone snickered nearby, and the three turned to see Nico di Angelo lounging in the growing evening shade under a tree. They were fairly certain he hadn’t been there moments earlier.  
“ _Gallo_? Fitting.”

Octavian rolled his eyes, as Leo mouthed, _’wait, you’re Italian_?’  
  
 “That would be why I don’t tell people my last name. ' _Octavian’s a cock_.' It stopped being funny when I was…any age.”  
  
“Gallo. Means rooster,” Nico explained to Percy and Leo, who collectively and immediately lost their shit.  
  
“Did you say it stopped being funny, because you’re wrong.”  
  
“Oh my god, I love you, but that’s the best thing I’ve heard in my life.” Leo was wheezing and had to grab onto Octavian’s arm for support to stop laughing.   
Then it sunk it what he had just said.  
Octavian, similarly, was staring down at him with big eyes.  
  
“Hey guys, what did I miss?” Will jogged up to the group, smiling until he noticed everyone’s expressions. “…Seriously, it’s been like ten minutes. What happened?”  
  
After that, the tour was going... awkwardly; after Leo’s accidental sort-of love confession, the son of Hephaestus spent most of his time staring at the ground with his ears on fire.   
Will, Nico, and Percy all looked like they didn’t want to say anything, but simultaneously wanted to talk to one another a great deal.   
Occasionally, Octavian would catch them mouthing things at one another with exaggerated hand motions and had to ignore it.  
  
This was different from being with Leo alone. This was different than being in the Big House. This was pure culture shock.  
Camp Half Blood was…different. It felt comfortable, but also incredibly _wrong_ at first glance. It really was like a summer camp, where as Octavian was used to a city, to cohorts, to a military. Order, function, clearly defined roles. Hell, even just paved roads.  
  
This was not that.

The things that seemed the most familiar, the Ares and Athena cabins, seemed to be the most suspicious of Octavian. It was unavoidable to be seen by the campers, as they were laid out in such a way that being in a middle meant every single cabin could see into the central grassy area. After Percy’s warning, many campers were making a point of checking out Octavian.  
  
Leo broke off from the group, briefly, to greet his siblings. He was well liked, it seemed, though Octavian was annoyed to see more than one similarly hit Leo in the shoulder, much like Nico di Angelo had done earlier.  
Though, it all seemed to be forgiven. A very young boy was crying buckets and rubbing a snot covered nose into Leo’s chest, as the older fire user tried to calm him, apologizing for scaring everyone.  
Leo was evidentially head counselor, of which Octavian had no idea. Octavian had assumed Leo shied away from being in a leadership position. Then again, it hadn’t sounded like Leo had spent much time around his family either. So, maybe it was just a title with no real meaning behind it. Unlike the Praetorship which granted you massive amounts of political power, influence in the senate, and secured a good future for your household.  
  
“I had to take over again,” a young man complained. “I made you counselor because I didn’t want to be it.”

Leo laughed, and looked sympathetic. “Sorry Jake, I don’t think I’ll be staying long now either. But I’ll gladly be head counselor for the next 12 hours.”

“You know what, I’ll take it.”  
  
A hand on his shoulder broke Octavian away from observing the scene, and he looked back at Will Solace.  
“Hey, you want to meet your half siblings? Brothers from another mother, or pantheon I guess.”  
  
That too, was a very strange experience. The Apollo campers were initially cautious and didn’t say much. There was something to them, that they all looked related, but Octavian couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was.   
Will took Octavian into the cabin, which gleamed gold in the sunlight. It was not… entirely hideous on the inside. It was a bit old fashion really, with plaster and wooden beams. It wasn’t homey, or particularly relaxing; but none the less, it made Octavian miss his own home.  It wasn’t as though he loved the cohorts, you weren’t supposed to – but at the very least it was familiar to him. At the very least, it was more of a home to him than his actual house.  
  
“Hyacinths,” Octavian said, seeing a potted plant on a shelf. Will nodded, and a redheaded girl on a bunk seemed to be watching fairly closely. She had dyed hair, bits of green. Not something that would be allowed in Camp Jupiter.  
  
“Apollo got pretty emotional about it. Though on the plus side, I think we’re now officially the most LGBT+ friendly cabin here. Me, dating Nico. Kayla here, two dads.” The redhead gave a small wave. “Apollo…having been one of those dads. And, now…you and Leo.”

“Plus,” Kayla said. “You already did the dying part of Greek tragedies. No need to worry about getting turned into a plant like Hyacinthus over there.”  
  
Octavian almost pointed out he was Roman, not Greek, but wanted to avoid the death subject currently. He had no idea where their quest would lead.  
  
“So, there’s no hierarchy to the cabins? Inside or out?” He asked Will, who looked mildly torn.  
  
“I mean, yes, and no? Head counselors get some say, but it’s generally just the oldest camper who can instruct the others. Or, alternatively, the one with the strongest powers. Of all the cabins…well, obviously, Zeus and Hera are _the_ hierarchy, but until Jason showed up…they weren’t really an issue. They were figureheads, no one was in them. Same with Poseidon and Hades. Hades, only recently got a cabin, but again…it’s only ever housed Nico and Hazel, when she stayed here. Poseidon, only Percy and Tyson. As for the rest of us…I think the Athena cabin probably thinks they’re in charge.”

“As does the Ares,” a young man, Austin who had been introduced earlier, walked in. “Ares thinks they’re in charge, and they butt heads with Athena cabin. We’re holding our own, but we took some pretty heavy hits during the Titan War.”  
  
“Mars,” Octavian said flatly, remembering vaguely meeting the God. Not his favorite deity, by far. “Yes, I could imagine that easily. Minerva though, different role set in Rome. I underestimated Annabeth Chase initially due to it.”  
  
“Don’t think you’re the first, and I can promise you won’t be the last,” Kayla laughed.  
  
“So… William, you’re the counselor? You’re younger than I am, aren’t you?” Octavian asked, as it seemed most the other Apollo children were deferring to him.  
  
“We, uh…” Will looked away from Octavian. “Lost a few campers. Two counselors, Michael and Lee... I’m…we’re the ones that are left.”

“You’re not soldiers,” Octavian surmised after a minute studying the three children of Apollo. “You’ve not been trained to fight in war, or what it means to face death.”  
  
Will shook his head, “Not then, no. We’re supposed to be a haven.”

“Kind of fucked up, if you ask me.” Kayla said, giving a sharp look at Octavian. “Child soldiers. You’ve got adult demigods and _legacies_ , right? They just let you fight?”  
  
“You sound like Leo,” Octavian said dryly. “Yes, we have a senate, primarily made up of adults. They oversee decisions relating to Camp Jupiter, and New Rome itself, like any political party would. It isn’t as though a 13 year old is making the call to go to war or not. And frankly, many of us would die if we weren’t trained like we were. The senators know that, they were us once. The vast majority of New Rome are all veterans of the legion. It’s because of our training that we succeeded and didn’t sustain higher rates of casualties during the Titan War. It’s a necessity of being a demigod or legacy, if we’re ever expected to live to adulthood, or exist outside of the camp with normal human beings. From what I understand, very few Greek demigods manage the same.”

“Yeah, well you sound like an Athena kid,” Kayla countered, after a minute. “I’m not saying training isn’t needed, but don’t you guys get the chance to be kids at all too? Do you guys have any kind of…fun? There has got to be a middle ground, right?”

Octavian thought immediately on war games but figured that was probably not the right answer. Middle ground, right.  
“…Sometimes, yes. We have leave. People will gather at homes for parties on occasion and play games.”  
  
There was a significant amount of smuggled wine and underaged drinking, which was exactly why Octavian lost his virginity at 14 to a girl in the 5th cohort named Lopez. She was one who hadn’t survived.   
  
“Games? Like...Video games?” Austin asked carefully, to which Octavian nodded.

“Card games, board games, video games. I wasn’t allowed any growing up, but I did play them with others. As long as they’re not connected to the internet, of course.”   
Octavian had a brief memory of laughing alongside Reyna while they decimated a few other kids in their group. They weren’t the closest of friends, but they worked well together. Reyna was a force to be reckoned with, and Octavian the brain with a nearly sixth sense as to wear games would go. No one wanted to play games of chance against Octavian.  
They had stayed up much later than they were supposed to and had had far too many energy drinks and bags of chips. Octavian had braces then and was still very gangly. They were all gangly, really. Reyna was all knees and elbows, now covered in scrapes and cuts from training. She hadn’t been in New Rome long, and was very quiet, but stern. Jason, too, tried his best, back when Octavian didn’t see him as a threat. He was just a kid.  There were others, some were still alive, some were not. Octavian had been about 13 and it was the first time he really had been able to be around kids his own age for fun.  
It hadn’t lasted long, when his mother found out.

Will, Kayla, and Austin exchanged looks. “Soooo…Mario Party?”  
  
While Kayla and Austin were arguing a few minutes into the game, Will leisurely looked over at Octavian, awkwardly holding a controller.  
“So, you and Leo, huh? Soulmates…That’s pretty big, isn’t it? You know I introduced him to the camp, the first time.”  
  
Octavian glanced at him, bonding with his half-brother over Octavian’s strange romance wasn’t ideal. “Was he always so annoying?”  
  
“Oh,” Will laughed. “Moreso. But, it was on purpose, or at least born out of nerves. I’m sure you’ve noticed that at least. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best introduction. Hey, Leo, your powers are a curse, your cabin is cursed, and your previous head counselor died! Have a nice afternoon!”  
  
“His powers aren’t a curse,” Octavian said firmly, glancing back at the screen, and rolling the dice with a hit of a button.  
  
“No, of course not.” Will agreed, looking a bit surprised.   
  
“Why is he underweight?” Octavian asked after a moment, saying it quietly, not wanting to alert the other Apollo Cabin goers. Will bit his lip and shrugged a shoulder.  
  
“I honestly don’t know, it could be related to his powers, but I have another working theory. I think it’s likely he was conserving food for _you_ , not himself. Food insecurity shows up often in demigods here, given how many of us have…not stellar backgrounds. Single parents, or no parents… If food was a worry on your unintentional vacation, then, well….” Will leaned back into his bunk, from where they were sat in the middle of the cabin. “As we’ve seen, Leo tends to self-sacrifice, without being asked to.”  
  
“Yes,” Octavian agreed. He exchanged coins for another star. What a strange life. “Yes, he does.”  
  
“Is this serious, this thing between you? Are you really soulmates?”  
  
“I’m inclined to believe, yes, we are in fact soulmates. I received a prophecy, and I spoke to Diana. Seems as though it was backed up by Apollo’s comment, back in the Big House. Have we been soulmates since before we died, I have no idea. Will we remain soulmates? I have no idea. There’s not as if there’s a guide.” Octavian was still uncertain about how much information to give individuals he didn’t know, if he should tell them that Leo and him were unable to hurt one another.  
  
“Diana- oh, Artemis? Wow.” Will whistled, sort of. “So, are you…happy?”  
  
“My current situation is confusing, and depressing, as I realize how little control I’ve had in my life, at any point. Even before being I was … _influenced_. I know how likely it is my own home will not welcome me back once they find out that I conspired with outside forces. I could be executed. Or exiled. My former allies were made of convenience, that they may benefit me while I fed them some drivel about promising them a spot in powerful places. Or, they were allies due to political pressure, or blackmail. I doubt I’ll have anyone to turn to there, and even if I did, I can’t imagine it would last. Reyna will not side with me any longer, I’ll lose any footing I once had, any status I once had.” Will, Kayla, and Austin all stopped what they were doing in the game to look at Octavian.  
  
“What about your mom?” Will asked. “She wouldn’t take you in?”  
Octavian actually laughed at that.  
  
“I think…you’ve mistaken your situation, Octavian.” Will said slowly. “Reyna, Jason, Frank, Hazel…they might all hate you, sounds like for a lot of very valid reasons…But, your camp thinks you sacrificed yourself to save them. You’re being hailed as a hero, not a villain.”  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (in Mario Party: Octavian picked Bowser, Kayla picked Donkey Kong, Austin picked Wario, and Will picked Daisy.)
> 
> I've always liked the idea that maybe when they were younger Octavian and Reyna got along a lot better than we're shown in the canon series. Neither are the most charismatic, but they're good at what they do. They're about the same age, they had to have spent a good amount of time around one another. Reyna seems to trust Octavian's judgement a lot of the time early on. 
> 
> If you're curious, Octavian's favorite board game was Monopoly because he'd always win and took glee in destroying the hopes and dreams of the people around him.


	9. Florence & Ungar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavian thinks over his possibilities and politics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is essentially pt2 of an in between chapter in camp half blood, but with some mildly important groundwork.
> 
> ...the government structure of camp rome isn't clear, so I got to invent some stuff. Do they have an emperor? President? Is it the us president or someone else? Tell us Rick.  
> Oh well.
> 
> "More red lightning flashed in the sky, shaking the  
> temple. Then he put his hands down, and the rumbling stopped. The clouds turned from  
> gray to white and broke apart.  
> A pretty impressive trick, considering the kid didn’t look like much. - The Son of Neptune"

  


  
Heroes.  
  
A flashy means to satisfy the masses.  
  
Hercules, Hector, Aeneas, _Perseus_ , _Jason_.  
They were all warriors, their stories let the everyday people of Greece, or Rome, romanticize the acts they themselves would never be capable of. Strength no human could rival. Glory no human could attain.  
  
Octavian, Octavian was named after a statesman. A politician, a ruler, not a concept or ideal.  
  
Octavian never wanted to be a hero, but he wasn’t stupid. Their means as a tool of manipulation were important. He knew how easy it was to sway the public opinion.  
He knew that he could work every day of his life as a politician, and yet not accomplish as much as a camp _hero_ could in a week.  
  
Octavian didn’t want to be Praetor to become a hero, but becoming a hero to gain Praetorship could be useful.  
In Camp Jupiter, the line of ascension was different to Rome of the past. In New Rome, becoming Praetor in the military meant automatically having a _say_ in the senate, though not yet being a senator. They wouldn’t be able to vote, though held a good deal of sway in current events. In the past, a Praetor would be automatically become a senator - but given the ages in the Legion of today, one would not become a senator in New Rome until they were a Propraetor.  
  
Being a Propraetor led to either being Consul, or a judge. Consul led to Governor, or proconsul. Governor led to Censor.  
Censor could ultimately lead to _Princeps senatus_ , the individual in New Roman society that served essentially as ‘President’.  
They’d long since gotten rid of an Emperor or _dictator_ , however the Princeps still had an extraordinary amount of power.  
  
(New Rome didn’t follow common American political structure, though some adults did vote in the American elections, if they were aware of them. Many lived so detached from the rest of America, they wouldn’t be able to tell you the current President. Octavian attempted to stay within current events of the world, as much as he was able to, but access to information wasn’t always easy.)  
  
It went without saying that Octavian ultimately wanted to be _Princeps senatus_. Praetor first, then the next phase could begin. But, it didn’t hurt to lay some groundwork early. Being in good status was the earliest groundwork you could make. That was one of the few lessons Octavian learned from his mother that he agreed with.  
  
Classically within New Rome, Princeps went to the more eye catching of the former Censors, or proconsuls. You needed to be or feign charm; you needed to be a skilled orator or at least have the means to hire one.  
The current Princeps in New Rome was a man who renamed himself Aetius. Aetius came from a wealthy legacy family, had been very attractive in his youth, very charming, did fine in missions, but did not do much else in his life. By the time he reached Princeps, he had gotten fat, and was beginning to bald. Aetius continued to do not much else, though was shockingly elected a second time, giving him a ten-year run as Princeps.  
Nothing much had changed in New Rome, good nor bad. It had grown stale.  
  
Initially when they met, Octavian was mildly intrigued by Jason and his heritage, but as he began to watch Jason climb the ranks, it felt like watching another Aetius. _Kind_ enough, but ultimately a man who could care less about being a true leader, a true politician. Percy Jackson was much the same way, shrugging off the responsibilities and title that came to a Praetor. They simply wanted to do so called good, with no real plans in place. They didn't want to have to deal with the dirtier sides of politics. They didn't want to compromise.

  
But they were _heroes._ To the camp, to the legion.  
All because they happened to be born to the right God.  
  
What Octavian remembered of Mount Othrys, was watching Jason Grace kill Krios. Of course, it was after a long battle, and Krios was by far the weakest of the Titans.  
But Jason got the final blow. So, Jason was the hero.  
  
Now though, _Octavian_ was the hero. Gaia, a significantly bigger threat than Krios ever was or ever could be – and Octavian was no _son_ of Jupiter.

Yes, Octavian could use this.  
  
As long as he survived the Triumvirate.  
  
The game in front of him jingled, but neither Will nor Octavian was paying it much attention anymore.  
“Look, I don’t know much about Roman politics, but whatever you’re aiming for, or were…you might have a better shot at it now than you did before. If you show up, warning them of impending attacks, it might even further their hero worship. Octavian; killed Gaia to save Rome, came back from the dead to do it again.” Will shrugged a shoulder.  “Sounds nice, doesn’t it? It’s mostly a lie, but it sounds nice.”  
  
Octavian’s mind was running a mile a minute, thinking over all the possibilities. Could he start where he left off, without outside influence from the Triumvirate? If Octavian had the publics affection now, Praetorship would be easy, and taking control from Reyna wouldn’t be nearly as difficult.  
  
But then, there was the vision, of an empty city lined with corpses.  
  
“Of course, if you did, I’m guessing you’d be leaving behind Leo. Leo doesn’t really fit into the perfect _New Rome ideal_ you want, does he? An outsider, Greek, a man. Not to mention, Leo’s as far from a politician as you can get. He’s not the type to stand behind you and say nothin’. He’d be _problematic_ for your image.”  
  
That was like an electrical shock Octavian hadn’t felt since his days fighting with Jason Grace. There was a flash in his mind, cutting through everything else.  
  
He snapped at Will before he had time to even think about it. “I will _not_ abandon Leo.”

  
Octavian didn’t need a lecture on who Leo was, he didn’t need a lecture from the likes of Will Solace or Percy Jackson. Their sentiment eclipsed reality, that it should be Octavian angry at them. What had Will Solace done for Leo? What had Percy Jackson?  
  
Will’s eyes were a similar color to Octavian’s, but a bit brighter of a blue. Still, there was a resemblance, in the way Will watched him for a moment, before he cracked a small smile. Whatever he was looking for, it didn’t look like he believed Octavian.  
“Let’s hope not. ”  
  
No one said much of anything, just silently playing the game until Austin broke the silence.

“So, uh. What is a legacy anyway? The other Romans kept saying something about cohort numbers and legacies, and we just sort of nodded along and didn’t ask.”

  
“A cohort is simply a faction of the military. A pure legacy is a child descended from a demigod or demigods, instead of being a demigod themselves. However, you can have a legacy demigod, where their earthly parent was a legacy or a demigod, and their other parent was a God.” Octavian answered easily, on autopilot, still thinking about the repercussions of what was said earlier.  
 Camp Half Blood had initially worried Octavian for the sheer fact they had _no_ legacies. While legacies were stronger than the average human and may in some ways even had advantages over some demigods, but they were classically not as strong. However, a legacy that happened to be a demigod as well could be fearsome, just look at what happened to Frank Zhang. Hadn’t done much in Octavian’s case, however.  
  
“So, like, when Percy and Annabeth inevitably make children, their kids would be a legacy?” Octavian made a face that had Will laughing.  
  
“Yes. As…. unpleasant as that mental image is.”  
  
“Was your mom a normal human, demigod, or a legacy?”  
  
“Legacy, though quite far back.” Octavian responded, Godly ancestry didn’t work the same way human DNA did, so the amount of ancestry didn’t always matter much.  
  
“Who was your mom descended from?” Kayla asked, and Octavian grimaced.  
  
“I’d rather not discuss it…”  
  
Will whistled, poorly. “Wow, you’re not bragging about something relating to yourself. Must be bad. Who is it? Is there a Roman God of baked potatoes or something?”  
  
“Technically, I’m likely related to many Gods, as many New Roman legacies marry other legacies, or demigods. Half the camp is likely related to half the pantheon, if you go back far enough. There is a boy in the First Cohort that is a legacy of no less than 7 Gods.”  
Octavian over time had made sure only those who could benefit his own causes ended up in the First Cohort. Wealthy families, powerful demigods, legacies of note.  
  
“Okaaay, but what’s the one you don’t want to admit to?” Kayla made a face. “It’s not Hephaestus, right? Because that would start to cross some weird lines.”  
  
“No, not Vulcan.” Octavian said flatly, as he in game used another warp pipe to obtain yet another star. “Regardless, my mother, and her family, were so eager on maintaining status that I’ve always assumed it was a lie.”

  
Not entirely, Octavian actually thought it was likely to be true, but while it may have been beneficial to his status, Octavian always hated the idea of using anything his mother had given him to forward his goals.  
Moreover, with Jason in camp, it wouldn’t have served the purpose Octavian would have wanted.  
  
“Who?” Will pushed, eager. “This is honestly the closest thing to soap operas I’ve had since I left the south.”  
  
Octavian sent him a blank look, before turning back to the screen. They weren’t that close. Not many knew that detail.

It wasn’t as though Octavian was able to hide aspects of it, but the storm clouds Octavian could create while in a trance seemed to be ignored by most people. Maybe they thought it was just part of prophecy.

An hour later, Octavian had won. (5 stars, 2 bonus stars.) At least that much hadn’t changed, even if the games had over the years. Kayla was yelling at Austin for losing her the minigame star. Apollo children, it seemed, worldwide, had a competitive streak. (And, a tendency to blame their siblings.)  
  
“Oh, dinner time, guys. You’ll have to finish the rest of your tour tomorrow.” Will announced, standing up and brushing himself off. “I’m sure your boyfriend misses you; I’d like to say mine misses me but he’s basically a half feral cat. He shows up when he wants attention or food. Maybe more like a raccoon. Wearing him down though. Anyway, normally we sit at cabin specific tables. Given you’re Roman, all bets are off, but you’re welcome to sit with us, Octavian.”

“…Thank you,” Octavian very nearly mumbled. He didn’t argue that Leo wasn’t his boyfriend, because he honestly had no idea. Soulmate, yes; boyfriend, who knows.  
  
But, Leo did look happy to see him, when they went to their tables. It was dark out, and fire always complimented Leo’s features. It was less like Leo used fire, and more like it was created for him. Leo already had a new coating of oil and dirt on him, as it seemed like most of his siblings did. They must have been showing Leo new inventions, creations, whatever they were making in their forge.

“Hey, how’d it go?”  
 Leo’s siblings were looking at Octavian with some reserve. One was staring at him while plainly brandishing a wrench.

“Fine.” Octavian wasn’t lying, he couldn’t find it in himself to hate his Greek counterparts, as much as he deeply wanted to; but part of him wanted to be back on the sand in the middle of the Atlantic alone with Leo. “…As well as anything Greek could be.”  
  
“We actually played Mario Party,” Will said, walking past the two. “Octavian destroyed us.”  
  
“Video games? When’d we get video games?” Leo asked Will first, with astonishment, before turning to Octavian with a curious smile. “Wait, no. You? Having fun like an actual teenager? Have you reported yourself to the authorities yet? You know, I knew Will was a medic, but I had no idea he was a proctologist. How big was the stick you pulled out of his ass?”  
  
Will made a gesture, saying about yea big with his hands. Leo cackled, and Octavian rolled his eyes.  
  
“Games aren’t any different than anything else, and you should know I’m inherently good at everything I attempt.” Octavian said airily. Leo’s laughter and expressions were infectious, and Octavian hated it, sort of.  
He felt more relaxed almost immediately upon seeing Leo. While the Apollo children weren’t terrible, at no point did Octavian feel relaxed, or as though he could put his guard down entirely. Not since they entered camp.  
But, something inside Octavian seemed to recognize that Leo was different.

“Including saliva production, apparently. Remember that? Over the ocean? I was just telling my bros, gals, and non binary pals all about it.” Leo’s grin sharpened, picking up on it. “The stain looked exactly like a cowboy boot.”  
  
“I seem to remember you-.”  
  
“Please stop flirting,” Nico di Angelo cut in, walking up with a face looking like he’d just seen his grandmother naked. “It’s _so_ … _so_ weird.”  
  
“Wait, is this flirting, because I’ve been doing it wrong this entire time.” Leo looked like he was thinking back on his life, but seemed to be doing it mostly for show. “Am I _not_ supposed to call people _mamacita_ to indicate flirting intention?”  
  
“No, Leo. Clearly not.” A girl with a shaved head said tiredly at the Hephaestus table.  
  
“Percy already head home?” Will asked, sitting down with Nico who nodded.  
  
“Leo did basically the same thing Octavian did, spent pretty much the entire time in the Hephaestus cabin or forge. When he wasn’t getting punched.” Octavian frowned, stepping up to the table and grabbing up the corner of Leo’s oversized Camp Half Blood t-shirt sleeve to reveal a blossoming bruise on his shoulder. Leo shrugged off his hand and waved him off with a small smile. It’s fine, Leo mouthed at him. It wasn’t, Octavian thought.  
 Nico continued without noticing. “It was pretty obvious the rest of the camp tour wasn’t happening, plus I think he wanted to contact Annabeth to gossip, so he took off early.”  
  
Octavian ignored the two, and quietly and cautiously sat down next to Leo, not exactly knowing where else to go. He didn’t want to sit with the Apollo children again, he wasn’t really one of them.  
  
“So, Octavian,” A girl at the table started, Nyssa, Leo whispered at him. “What are Hephaestus kids like where you’re from? Are there more fire users, like Leo?”  
  
“No, he’s fairly singular.” Octavian said easily. “It’s a bit complicated due to the fact we put significantly less importance on Godly parent; Children of Vulcan in New Rome are still often our smiths, however it’s more...” He glanced at the Hephaestus cabin exterior. “ _Focused._ They make our weapons, our armor, machinery. But, they’re all specific tasks, specific jobs. No one creates for the sake of creation.” Octavian paused, thinking on something that had always been curious to him. “Regarding the fire, it’s ...the opposite, honestly.”  
  
“Opposite?” Leo frowned. “Opposite of my powers? What, _ice_?”  
  
“No. Vulcan children _fear_ fire, especially wildfire. They don’t worship it, they pray to their father to _prevent_ fire, not cause it or use it. A yearly bonfire is held for all Romans, Vulcanalia, in which we sacrifice items to the fire, in place of humans. In the past, live animals were sacrificed just to appease Vulcan. I’ve not heard of any Vulcan children with fire based abilities in New Roman history.”  
  
Leo looked mildly taken back, and suddenly far more closed off, if not somewhat guilty.  
  
“Vulcan himself...well, it’s unclear.” Octavian started, thinking back on his early studies. “Vulcan existed as a separate God in Roman culture before the equation to Hephaestus, but over time they became essentially one in the same in the eyes of the Romans. There is an idea that originally, they all came from much older cultures, and was a much stronger God. Very nearly primordial.”  
Everyone within earshot seemed to be listening, and more than one shot a suspicious look at Leo. Octavian ignored them mostly, pausing to drink a good amount of coffee that had appeared in a goblet in front of him on the table.  
“Plus, much like the differences in abilities between Hazel Levesque and Nico di Angelo - Fire was far more central to his cult in Rome, where Hephaestus from what I’ve read was less associated with flames and volcanic activity in classic Greek culture. The forge was more central to Greek culture than to ours. But, as far as the older God is concerned… It’s impossible to know, he could have been Minoan, but their religion is a mystery to us.”  
  
Leo, Octavian thought, was much the same as that older unknown God. He was unlike his siblings in either camp, his powers were unlike theirs. Yet, simultaneously, he seemed to have aspects of all of them, in addition to having sheer destructive abilities that seemed to rival any child of the so called Big Three.  
Maybe Leo was a legacy in his own right. Maybe, considering things they saw on their travels, Leo could be a legacy of an entirely different pantheon to Greek and Rome.  
  
“I already told you, right, that fire users weren’t exactly a great omen here either.” Leo mumbled, glancing to the ground. “At least that’s changed…kind of.”  
Given the reactions from some in the camp, Octavian suspected not everyone had changed their minds. Leo coming back from the dead, with Octavian in tow, seemed to signal to some that maybe catastrophe hadn’t yet been avoided. And, maybe, in a way, they were right.  
  
“Do you know what my name means?”  
Multiple people at the tables jumped, startled as they suddenly realized Apollo was sitting at the [Apollo] table, chin resting in his hand. He looked exhausted but was watching Octavian.  
  
“It's...classically unknown, there are only theories.” Octavian thought on it, and answered slowly. Apollo hummed, nodding. Some at the Athena table put their hands own, disappointed at not being called on.  
  
“True enough, I certainly don’t remember. None of us do, it’s not just my current amnesia. We change from culture to culture, place to place, Minoan to Hittite to Greek to Roman. Our memories get mixed, hazy. I took on powers from Helios, took on some of his traits, personality, while he faded away. We can be born, yet still have existed. Hephaestus, Vulcan, whomever, they could all be the same, and all be different. But, do you know what Plato thought my name came from?” Apollo had these moments of seeming clarity, of sounding like the God he was supposed to be.  
  
“...Redemption,” Octavian answered. “He said it meant redemption.”  
  
Apollo didn’t nod, didn’t look happy, he just looked tired.  
  
“I suppose we’ll see.”  
  
  
That night Octavian laid in a spare bed by himself, on the second floor of the Big House.  Dinner had gone easily enough by the sheer fact not many more spoke to him. Apollo didn’t seem interested in the extrapolating as to what he meant or what he knew now; if there was anything he had remembered regarding the Triumvirate or Meg McCaffrey, he wasn’t telling Octavian at the very least.  
The other children of Apollo continued to be relatively welcoming, but that was where the friendliness stopped.  
  
Leo had been pulled away after dinner by his siblings once again, managing one small grimace and wave back to Octavian before vanishing into the chaotic cabin they were from.  
Will made it clear once again that Octavian was welcome to sleep in the Apollo cabin, but after a long look from Chiron, Octavian was certain the centaur wanted to keep a more watchful eye on the Roman.  
  
So, here he lay, alone and in relative darkness. The bed was too short for him, and his feet stuck off the end of it. That was fine. It was uncomfortable, unfamiliar. That was fine. Reminded him of being back home. Quiet and alone. And uncomfortable.  
  
 It was fine.  
  
Huffing, Octavian kicked his blankets off an onto the floor. (Orange blankets, the absolute monsters). He walked barefoot down the stairs and out onto the porch. Leaning against a bannister, he looked out into the darkness of the camp. It was the end of summer now, and the night air was beginning to get cold, especially coming in off the Atlantic. Torches throughout the camp illuminated the paths well enough he could see hints of the forges, armory, and a roof or two of the cabins. No roads, no city planning, just randomly amassed buildings in the woods.  
  
And then, a light.  
Octavian frowned, trying to focus on the bobbing light in the dark. It looked like it was coming out of the forge and moving away. There seemed to be a figure with it, a small figure.  
  
“Leo?” Octavian whispered to himself, unthinkingly taking a few steps down and off the porch. Of course, there were smaller campers here, plenty of younger children (no other 16 year old was quite as short, though.)  
The ugly orange shirt wasn’t keeping him warm outside, nor were the sweatpants he got to sleep in, but he wasn’t thinking about that anymore.  
Something told Octavian it was Leo, he didn’t question it.  
  
If it was Leo, he didn’t appear to be going back towards the Hephaestus cabin, but off into the woods. Octavian had no reason to follow him, and if Chiron were to discover Octavian of all people had vanished to who knows where in the middle of the night, it might not lead to a significant amount of trust. Even less than he currently had.  
Still, Octavian followed.  
Most of the time, he couldn’t see anything but a very faint glow off deep into the woods. He heard voices from the trees, whispers that reminded Octavian of being in the sky crossing to Brazil.  
  
Eventually, Octavian was stopped in front of a large cliff face. Alone. His feet were bare and cold.  
There was nothing there, no trace of anyone, no lights, nothing. He couldn’t see anything. Where had the person gone, where had the light gone?  
  
“Leo?” Octavian whispered again, glancing around and really beginning to feel how dark it was in the woods. He had no weapons on him, no knives, nothing.  
There was no reply, and Octavian realized he needed to turn back and leave this place. He was used to ghosts in New Rome, but these woods were alien to him.  
  
A hand grabbed his arm, and Octavian shrieked and jumped away from it,  his heart beating a mile a minute.  
 Leo stood here, hand out, eyes wide in surprise, before he doubled over in laughter.  
  
“Oh my gods, so much for the trained centurion! What the hell was _that_ noise? Are you trying to call bats, summon dolphins? That was like in the 17,000 Hertz range.” In normal lighting, Leo would have seen Octavian’s face turn bright red, which would have made things all the more terrible.  
“What are you doing here?” Leo asked, finally, wiping at his eyes. “How’d you even know it was here?”  
  
“I saw you, leaving the forge.” Octavian finally responded, flustered. “I followed you. What is this anyway? Where did you come from?”  
  
Leo pointed at a now visible door, cracked open in the rocks. Octavian hadn’t heard anything open, yet the door was massive.  
“Octavian Gallo, welcome to Bunker 9.”  
  
Music started playing when they walked in, and Leo perked up at it, though Octavian didn’t recognize it. Granted, New Rome didn’t get in a lot of common music from the outside world, apart from the human parents of demigods.  
 Leo grinned, humming a bit to it. “My mom liked this song; she always played a bunch of old rock stuff. This place just does that sometimes, plays music without me asking.”  
  
The space was massive, messy, yet seemingly empty. It was unlike the forges or armories, here or in Camp Jupiter. It felt old, even to Octavian, like it had been forgotten years ago. It felt as though it should have been full of projects, busy and bustling. Just like Leo himself.  
  
“This is where I built the Argo. Man, it’s weird not to see it here…I haven’t been back since…well, you know. I guess you don’t have any good memories of the Argo, though. Given I was pretty possessed at the time and tried to kill you.”  
  
“Well, pot, kettle.” Octavian said lightly, and Leo smiled back at him.  
  
Octavian stood back, while Leo walked further into the space to inspect things further.  
“No one else has been in here since we left for California, no one else can open it but me. You need fire powers,” Leo explained in more of a mumble than anything, randomly grabbing up items and blowing off the dust. “Until I got here, it hadn’t been used in about…200 years, I think they said?”  
  
“Why did you come here? Tonight? Weren’t you going to stay with your siblings?” Octavian asked finally, after about fifteen minutes of looking around, and Leo looked up.  
  
“I guess…I couldn’t sleep. I’ve gotten used to you being there. It’s weird, it’s like…I felt more alone with them than I do…alone.” Leo said slowly, fully looking at Octavian. “How come you were outside in the first place? Barefooted no less.”  
  
“I couldn’t sleep,” Octavian answered. “I’ve…gotten used to you being there.”  
  
Five minutes later, and Leo had shoved Octavian down onto the makeshift bed inside Bunker 9, straddled him, and had his tongue fully down his throat. Octavian made a noise in his throat, before pushing back slightly.  
“What?” Leo asked, eyes narrowing. “You don’t want to make out anymore? We did this all the time island hopping.”  
  
“We did not do _this_.” Octavian breathed out, pushing up onto his elbows. “Is this what you want?”  
  
“We might die. Again.” Leo answered, trying to push him back down but still only weighed under 100 pounds. “We’re going to leave again, with your _dad_ , probably not have any alone time, and we might be killed off by some shadowy immortal group. Is it so wrong to want?”  
  
“You want to-“  
  
Music kicked in suddenly.  
_I believe it's meant to be, darling  
I watch you when you are sleeping  
You belong with me  
Do you feel the same?  
Am I only dreaming  
Or is this burning an eternal flame?_  
  
“Bone, bang, fuck, roll in the hay, bust a lug nut-“ Octavian slapped a hand over Leo’s mouth, before feeling a tongue on it, and jerking backwards. Leo had a cheeky grin on his face, leaned forward and licked a long finger once again.  
“Say….Is this the Bangles? I can’t say I was ever a fan.” Leo commented, as though he was in any way listening to the music.  
  
“We’re not doing this,” Octavian shook his head resolutely.  
  
“Why not? Just because I’m 16? That’s pretty normal, right? I know for a fact Jason and Piper fucked, though that’ll never admit it. Annabeth and Percy have. They’re all younger than you. You’re barely two years older than me. How old were you when you first had sex? You said you had _plenty_ of experience, didn’t you? Couldn’t have all been since you turned 18.” Leo attempted to adjust his hips for more contact, but Octavian sat up, and easily dumped him off and to the side.  
  
“Between other teenagers might be common, but I’m legally an adult. You’re underaged. It’s different. Plus, my experiences were… I didn’t regret it, but I can’t say it was the best experience either. I’ve never _dated_ anyone, it was always just sex.” Octavian crossed his legs in the bed, and Leo’s glare could have melted steel. Octavian decided not to mention that in California law, _any_ sex under the age of 18 was illegal – even between two minors.  
“I’d prefer if the first time we had sex wasn’t due to our impending possible deaths.  Also, I’m not having sex in a _camp half blood t-shirt_.”  
  
“Well, you could take it off?” Leo offered as a last resort, and Octavian returned the glare. Leo looked annoyed at first, and then his expression began to change slowly, into a very fond one (but still teasing).  
“Wait, so…are you saying you want it to be _special_?”  
  
Octavian huffed, and laid back down slowly, staring up into the rafters of the bunker. He wasn’t that sentimental. He thought.  
Octavian took in a deep breath before continuing to the main issue.  
“This…scares me, I’ll admit. I don’t know where all of this is going, I don’t know what my future is going to be. I want to know that my decisions are entirely mine. I don’t know how to have a long-term romantic relationship. I don’t want to have to make all of these decisions now, Leo.  
  
“Oh,” Leo flopped down with a big exhale. “I’m guessing The Bangles over loudspeaker isn’t really a turn on either, huh?” Octavian stared at him blankly. The song shifted, but Elvis wasn’t an improvement.  
“…After though? Can we talk about this again after?…you know, if we don’t die a horrific death at the hands of ancient God Emperors?”  
  
“Or at the hands of Reyna or Grace.”  
  
“Or Hazel or Frank,” Leo added, with a small smile. “This isn’t because…you’re not attracted to me, right? I, uh, don’t know if you noticed but self esteem and me are kind of like Sonny and Cher. One is real dead.”  
  
Octavian rolled over on his side to fully to face the younger Greek, “I was attracted to you in Senegal.”  
  
Leo looked sheepish, yet doubtful all at the same time. “You’re lying, you assclown.”

“Well, now I regret saying anything. I still hated you, but I was attracted to you. I kissed you first, didn’t I? Shouldn’t I be the one worried you’re not attracted to me?” Octavian huffed. “I thought you’d be glad to get rid of me, not that you’d want to stay my soulmate.”  
  
 Leo’s ears fully started burning. “You know, it’s…hard for me to…admit that kind of thing. I tend to just, joke around actual…feelings.”  
  
“No,” Octavian said blankly. “Who could have guessed? Not I, the assclown.”  
  
“Okay! I’m sorry!” Leo’s face was starting to look combustible. “Look, I mean. Any of this is…Even with Calypso, emotions are difficult for me….and when it comes to guys… It was hard in foster care, in Texas. Most of the homes were…really traditional values, kind of thing.” Leo crossed his arms and began tapping on his forearm.  
  
Octavian frowned, he didn’t know much about Texas apart from important political times or battles. “What does that mean?”  
  
Leo stared at him, confused. “You really don’t know? I don’t know how much of this I can explain beyond…deep Texas sucks.”  
  
“Oh,” Octavian thought about it. “You said something about one of your foster mothers…”  
  
“Yeah, she hit me, she hit the other kids. Hit me the most though, couldn’t keep my mouth shut. We were all under strict rules. Breaking any meant no meal, no sleep usually. She was very conservative, the bad kind of Baptist.”  
Leo said it so casually, and Octavian wanted to kill the woman. “I ran away a lot, Octavian. When I had to be forced into a happy home, I ran. When I was forced into the less happy homes, I ran. I’m getting really tired of running, but I don’t know how to move out of that mindset.” Leo’s voiced cracked just the slightest, but it was so out of the ordinary, it felt like a much deeper cut. “I know I…push people away purposely. Sometimes I barely realize I’m doing it. I know I insulted you a lot even when we weren’t fighting.”  
  
“Leo,” Octavian started, but Leo shook his head.  
  
“I’m trying to say it’s hard for me to admit. It took me dying to tell Piper and Jason how much they meant to me. I never really told Hazel and Frank, I tried but…I don’t know. And, I couldn’t tell Calypso. So, right now…I’m trying to tell you yes, you idiot, I like you. I find you attractive. And, I’m sorry I tried to just…rush into this tonight, I was scared that if we leave tomorrow you’d…never want to see me again after.”  
Leo and Octavian stared at each other for a good long time, until Leo laughed nervously.  
“Why did answering that feel more complicated than being soulmates? I guess, uh, do you want to be my boyfriend?”  
  
“Well, you’d be the first, but…it’s not the worst idea in the world.” Octavian feigned thinking about it. Leo flicked him, painlessly. “So, yes. I do.”  
  
“First and only, we’re soulmates. Assclown.” Leo kissed him again, softer this time, obviously beginning to show signs of fatigue. Within a few seconds, Leo had passed out into Octavian’s arm.  
  
It was true, if Octavian carried on in New Rome and used his new status to gain further favor, Leo wouldn’t fit the image Octavian had pictured for himself in the past.  It would be harder, convincing older conservative Romans.  
  
Then again, coming back from the dead and having a soulmate weren’t anything Octavian would have expected for himself either.  
  
Octavian moved Leo to the side easily, Leo slept like a brick, and grabbed up a handful of blankets and tossed them over the two, making sure he tucked it down by their feet. Leo grumbled in his sleep and moved closer again as Octavian relaxed. He was smaller than Octavian, but always would grab Octavian’s hand like Leo was the one reassuring him that everything was okay.  
Octavian fell asleep quickly and easily, comfortable and warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry folks I wanted to get this posted a bit earlier but I was in Portland this weekend. 
> 
> This chapter is basically a lot of Octavian contemplating and being an unreliable narrator, but there's some breadcrumbs and just personal headcanons I've had for awhile. This story won't ever explicitly say it, but I've always like the idea that Leo's mom (and maybe Sammy?) may have been a legacy of a demigod, but an Aztec one. Nothing that would change much, I just like Central American stuff.   
> Similarly, headcanon that any longer term residents of New Rome would nearly be similar to say... Wizarding families in HP? Like, they know some stuff, but they've been so long removed from it, that even within the same country they're barely aware of current events and trends etc.   
> Also, the Bangles. Because it plays in work every goddamn day. 
> 
> Also, while I didn't touch on it, there's one Greek hero I didn't have Octavian mention because I don't think he'd like to contemplate on it very long. Orpheus. A son of Apollo that lost everything he attempted to save.
> 
> (On a softer note, I picture these two as the kind of couple that constantly roasts each other but the moment someone else tries, they're like "...how so very dare you")
> 
> Long end note I know, but next chapter these idiots are heading out with Apollo, so that should be fun! 
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting and all the kudos.


End file.
